Wealth Management
Portfolio management and trading platform Vestmark recently announced that it has launched six separately managed account investment strategies, the firm’s first asset management offering. The strategies, called "Focused Index Portfolios,” follow S&P Dow Jones Indices, but in an SMA wrapper to allow for some customization and tax-loss harvesting. Robert Battista, senior vice president, and managing director of Vestmark Advisory Solutions said that the firm sees the launch as a first step toward a fully personalized direct indexing investment platform which Vestmark expects to roll out later in the year. The portfolios have minimums as low as $100,000, with fees comparable to an ETF. Three of the Index Portfolios are based on custom indices Vestmark built with S&P Dow Jones, including the S&P 500 Focused 100 VAST Portfolio, the S&P 500 Focused 50 VAST Portfolio, and the S&P 500 Catholic Values Focused 100 VAST Portfolio. The other three strategies are based on existing indices such as the Dow Jones U.S. Dividend 100 VAST Portfolio, the S&P 500 ESG Elite VAST Portfolio, and the S&P Developed Markets 100 ADR xUS VAST Portfolio. For now, the new strategies are available in the Vestmark Manager Marketplace, but Vestmark plans to distribute them to broker/dealers, independent advisors, and RIAs via a new sales team dedicated to the company's direct indexing services.
Finsum:Trading platform Vestmark launched six index portfolios as the firm's first step towards a fully personalized direct indexing investment platform which is expected later in the year.
Alternative investment platform CAIS recently announced that a selection of Reverence Capital’s funds and education courses will be available to RIAs and independent broker-dealers on its platform. Reverence Capital Partners is a private investment firm focused on financial services-focused private equity and structured credit. Mercer will provide third-party due diligence on the funds. As part of the announcement, Milton Berlinski, managing partner at Reverence, stated, “Through our experience across asset and wealth management, we’ve seen the challenges associated with accessing and selecting quality private market products. CAIS is uniquely positioned to provide the technological and educational resources to help tackle these concerns.” The partnership is taking place during an opportune time as a recent CAIS/Mercer study found that approximately 88% of financial advisors intend to increase their allocations to alternative asset classes over the next two years. Matt Brown, founder and chief executive officer of CAIS added, “With allocations to alternatives expected to continue rising in 2023, we believe that adding additional quality alternative products on the CAIS Platform is essential to empowering advisors to gain confidence in meeting client expectations.” CAIS serves more than 7,400 advisory firms and teams overseeing a total of more than $3 trillion in assets. Reverence Capital has about $8 billion in assets under management.
Finsum:With more than 88% of advisors intending to increase their alternative allocations, a selection of Reverence Capital’s funds will now be available to RIAs and independent broker-dealers on CAIS’s alternative investment platform.
After 16 years with Merrill Lynch, a Bank of America company, Winston-Salem, N.C.-based advisor Christy Campbell has joined Thrive Advisory Group, a unit of Alex. Brown, the St. Petersburg, Fla.-based division of Raymond James. The 21-year veteran, who has about $112 million in assets under management, will be a vice president and senior institutional consultant at the new firm. She will continue her focus on offering financial planning, wealth management, and customized strategies to a variety of clients including individuals, institutions, and small businesses. According to the website, Cambell will primarily concentrate on plan sponsors and investment committees to optimize their defined benefit, defined contribution, and non-qualified plans through tailored strategies that fit each business and its employees. Before Merrill, she previously held positions at BB&T (now Truist Financial Corp.) and Citigroup Global Markets. As part of the announcement, Campbell stated, “The decision to move my practice to Alex. Brown has allowed me to truly focus on individual and institutional client needs, which drives the investment and fiduciary process.” She added, “The systems, data security, technology, efficiencies, and expansive investment platform enable me to build customized strategies that prioritize my client’s goals.”
Finsum: Christy Campbell, a 21-year industry veteran, made the move from Merrill Lynch to Alex. Brown due to the firm’s expansive investment platform that will allow her to build customized strategies that prioritize her client’s goals.
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LPL recently announced that two teams of advisors, who serve a combined $275 million in advisory, brokerage, and retirement plan assets have joined LPL’s employee advisor channel, Linsco by LPL Financial. Chris Corcoran CRPC® joins LPL from Merrill Lynch and will be the first tenant in a new Linsco office in Houston, Texas. Matt Jackson and Adam Callender CRPC® join LPL from Truist and will work remotely from Northeast Florida. Corcoran has nearly 25 years of industry experience and works mainly with oil and gas engineers and other self-made clients. Jackson and Callender have a combined 22 years of service, having worked together since 2006. They shifted from the mortgage industry to wealth management in 2010. They specialize in retirement planning, investment solutions, and appropriate risk management strategies. They will also be joined at LPL by Registered Client Service Associate Tiffany Nessmith. Both teams went with Linsco by LPL to enhance the client service experience and have the freedom and flexibility to focus on what’s best for their clients. Linsco serves advisors that are seeking independence, including owning their client relationships and having the flexibility to run their practice, the way they want.
Finsum:Two advisor teams managing a combined $275 million joined Linsco by LPL so they have the freedom and flexibility to focus on what’s best for their clients.
New Age Alpha, which provides equity and fixed-income advisory and sub-advisory services, recently announced the launch of its new direct and custom indexing platform, SPACE. SPACE, which stands for Systematic Personal Asset Customization Engine, is designed to allow the user to build and trade customized alpha or beta index strategies. While SPACE comes with the typical benefits of other direct indexing platforms such as tax optimization, transparency, and ESG screening, it also includes additional features unique to New Age Alpha. For instance, users can build an alpha index strategy by customizing the underlying holdings of an ETF and utilizing factor screens across growth, value, and New Age Alpha's proprietary "Expectation Risk Factor." SPACE offers three primary applications, direct indexing, custom indexing, and prebuilt strategies. The direct indexing application provides the ability to invest directly in the underlying components of well-known indexes and ETFs through an SMA, allowing maximum tax optimization. The custom indexing application provides the ability to build custom, thoughtfully aligned alpha or beta indexes through personalization across various filters, screens, and factors to meet your client's specific needs. The prebuilt strategies offer the ability to invest using any of the over 120 indexes using New Age Alpha’s proprietary Expectation Risk Factor methodology.
Finsum: Asset management firm New Age Alpha launched SPACE, a new direct and custom indexing platform that offers unique features such as the ability to build an alpha index strategy with the firm’s proprietary "Expectation Risk Factor."
JPMorgan recently announced that they nabbed a $400 million team of financial advisors from Merrill Lynch. According to a press release announcing the move, The Karstaedt Group, which includes wealth advisors Marc Karstaedt, Daniel Zomback, and Raymond Lin and Client Associate Parker Jaques, joins JPMorgan Advisors in New York. JPMorgan says the team will report to regional director Keith Henry. Marc Karstaedt started his career in 1992 with Lehman Brothers and had stints at Citigroup and Morgan Stanley before joining Merrill in 2016. Zomback started in 2018 with AXA Advisors before joining Merrill in 2020. Lin began his career at Merrill in 2021. Merrill also lost an associate market manager to JPMorgan last month, when she left to oversee JPMorgan’s advisors in New York and New Jersey. However, Merrill 2022 had the “strongest year” in more than a decade in terms of hiring. Merrill Wealth Management’s president, Andy Sieg, said in a Q&A session following the firm’s quarterly earnings release two weeks ago, that the global wealth management and consumer-banking division ended the year with 19,273 advisors across its various channels. This was 2.3% higher than last year. Brian Moynihan, chief executive officer of Bank of America, Merrill’s parent company, also said last month that the firm plans to continue hiring financial advisors and private bankers, while JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said earlier this month that his firm is “still in hiring mode.”
Finsum:With JPMorgan still in hiring mode, the firm scooped up a $400 million team from Merrill Lynch, which is also continuing to hire advisors.