Investors are becoming more tolerant of risk as they position themselves for greater returns in the long term, Atlanta-based investment giant Invesco said Thursday.

January has started strong, company executives said in a fourth quarter conference call.

“It is a very different start to the year than I can tell you that I’ve seen in the last five years,” president and CEO Martin Flanagan said. “We are seeing investment in active equities to a degree that we have not seen in a period of time.”

For the fourth quarter, Invesco’s profits were down 21.6 percent, to $158.7 million. They were down 7.2 percent, to $677.1 million, for 2012.

Invesco’s operating revenue was up 9.6 percent, to $1.09 billion, in the fourth quarter. Assets under management at the end of 2012 were $687.7 billion, up 10 percent over 2011.