Displaying items by tag: smas

Thornburg Investment Management recently introduced Thornburg Personal ESG Portfolios, a new separately managed account capability that can provide investors with the ability to emphasize ESG factors within their portfolios. The firm, which has $40 billion in client assets, said in a press release that “ESG is an organic extension of Thornburg's core investment competencies as a fundamental, bottom-up, active manager of global equities and global fixed income.” Thornburg will not outsource the ESG decisions. Instead, its analysts and portfolio managers will evaluate ESG information alongside other factors, grounded by materiality standards from the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board. The ESG Portfolios will be available through select financial advisory firms and platforms. As part of the announcement, Jason Brady, president & CEO of Thornburg investment management stated "We know that investing with ESG criteria can mean different things to different people. By addressing both these factors in Thornburg Personal ESG Portfolios, we seek to offer a unique opportunity for investors to personalize their portfolios to their ESG values."

Finsum:Investors will now have even more access to ESG-focused SMAs with the launch of the Thornburg Personal ESG Portfolios.

GeoWealth, a TAMP built for registered investment advisors, recently announced several upgrades to its platform that focuses on providing RIAs with more personalization in their investment management programs. This includes expanding its model marketplace by increasing its vetted manager menu by over 200 percent. Advisors that use GeoWealth’s platform have previously had the flexibility to build their own models, select third-party model portfolios, or combine the two through custom UMAs. GeoWealth has now enhanced the platform by onboarding SMAs and single asset class or "sleeve-level" strategies to be in the UMA allocations. The firm has also announced the launch of its internal Investment Consulting division and the release of its integrated Manager Portal module on the platform. The Portal will allow third-party managers and advisors managing portfolios, to communicate portfolio updates to the GeoWealth trading team for execution. Plus, the portal will also allow asset managers to load their collateral directly to the Model Center for easy access by advisors.

Finsum:GeoWealth recently announced that it upgraded its platform with the expansion of its model marketplace and release of an integrated Manager Portal.

According to a recent report from Cerulli Associates, increased demand from financial advisors had led fund managers to include separately managed account (SMA) strategies into their model portfolios. Matt Apkarian, a senior analyst at Cerulli, told FundFire “Typically, model portfolios tap mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, but large asset managers are now seeing demand for SMAs, given their customization and tax-management capabilities.” According to FundFire, citing data from Cerulli, assets in model portfolios hit $2 trillion through the end of 2021. That was a 22% increase from the prior year. That included assets from home-office model portfolios and portfolios offered by asset managers, but excluded advisor-built model portfolios. Cerulli attributes the rise in assets to home offices directing their advisors to outsource investment management. The firm also believes that home offices will increase their model portfolio capabilities to compete with third-party strategists.

Finsum: SMA strategies are being incorporated into model portfolios as a result of advisor demand for more customization and tax management.