Our Solutions

The Unified Managed Account (UMA) is a new form of fee-based investment solution that allows the advisor to combine multiple unaffiliated products into a single account with automated services such as rebalancing and customization that better meet the needs of the investor. The UMA builds on the historic success of separately managed accounts (SMAs) and mutual fund wrap programs.

SMAs give advisors and high net worth clients access to institutional investment managers who construct portfolios of individual equities and/or bonds in a separate account for them. Unfortunately, a robust SMA solution for a client results in multiple accounts, numerous statements, and complex paperwork. Furthermore, delivery of a complete asset allocation requires spreading a clients assets among multiple managers. Generally there is limited ability to customize the portfolio or to rebalance or efficiently process cashflows. Mutual fund wrap programs allow advisors to construct a complete asset allocation out of funds and support higher degrees of service, but they are burdened by the tax liability and other limitations of mutual funds. UMA programs combine the benefits of both separate account and mutual fund wrap programs while eliminating their shortcomings.

Most investment advisors utilize investment products that incorporate active investment management in which an unaffiliated institutional investment manager is selecting individual securities in an effort to deliver above-market rates of return. Many advisors and institutions eschew the cost and potential tax liability of actively managed investment products in favor of passive or index-based investment solutions such as index mutual funds and exchange-traded funds. Unfortunately, neither of these index-based investment vehicles have the ability to deliver customized solutions for clients and only limited ability to control or tailor the tax impact on the individual client.

Market Index Solutions are portfolios of individual equities designed to deliver the underlying risk/return and performance characteristics of specific market indexes, the same indexes supported in most index mutual fund and ETF products on the market today. However, investors in MIS portfolios own the underlying individual securities, and the specific securities and trades can be customized to individual client needs, including tax, risk, and socially-responsible investing criteria. The result is a low-cost (no active money manager fees) indexed investment solution that is far more customizable than the products readily available to advisors today.