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June 04, 2018 at 10:23 AM
RBC Wealth Management-U.S. launched a new digital alternative investment platform for high-net-worth clients.
The cloud-based investment platform, which was developed in partnership with Artivest, gives financial advisors and their clients access to leading private equity and hedge funds across sectors, stages and styles. The platform also provides a streamlined process to complete the investment subscription process making it easier to bring alternatives into investors’ portfolios.
“In today’s volatile, yet innovative, global markets, alternative investments play an important role in building successful and diversified portfolios for high-net-worth investors,” said Bryan Mullin, head of alternative investments at RBC Wealth Management – U.S. “Through this new platform, our financial advisors have access to an even wider array of solutions to help meet the investment objectives and goals of their qualified clients.”
Alternative investments have historically been difficult for financial advisors to offer to qualified clients for three primary reasons: high investment minimums; a tedious, paper-intensive subscription process; and nontransparent, inaccessible fund data. RBC Wealth Management says it entered into this arrangement with Artivest to address these barriers, bringing the benefits of alternatives to high-net-worth individuals with a streamlined, online subscription process and accessible fund information and analytics.
Since launching the alternative investments platform, RBC Wealth Management says it has processed four timesas many investments as before the platform’s launch, with no increases in their operations staff or expenses.
MassMutual Introduces New Target Date Fund Family
MassMutual launched a new target date fund family that aims to help reduce market volatility for retirement plan savers when they are most vulnerable to market losses: just before and right after retirement.
The new TDF is subadvised by a Legg Mason-affiliated manager, QS Investors LLC.
The Legg Mason Total Advantage Funds is a series of bank-maintained collective investment funds that are available through MassMutual 401(k)s and other defined contribution retirement plans.
The funds incorporate both active and passive investment management strategies by investing in underlying funds that are managed by 16 different managers. A stable value investment component is a key part of the strategy to help retirement savers manage market volatility.
The Legg Mason Total Advantage Funds employ a glide path, which allows for a gradual adjustment of the asset allocation to reduce exposure to equities as savers approach retirement, shifting from an equity weight as high as 97% for those with 30 or more years until retirement to as low as 34% for those who are retired.
Weightings for stable value and other fixed investments increase proportionately. The actual ratio of the weighting between equities and fixed income is calibrated according to the target retirement year.
Vestmark Launches Model Trading Service
Vestmark announced the launch of its Model Trading Service (MTS), which offers model management, trading, rebalancing and account administration outsourcing for broker-dealers, RIAs, banks and their advisors.
