With business owners forming such an important part of wealth managers' clients, services that give valuable data about such owners and their firms are at a premium.

BizEquity, the US-headquartered provider of business valuation knowledge and big data, has launched an “Advisor Office” subscription service for wealth managers, registered investment advisors and insurance advisors.

The rollout of BizEquity Advisor Office is being showcased simultaneously at wealth management gatherings in Chicago - the Envestnet Advisor Summit - and at the inaugural eMoney Advisor summit in Carlsbad, California.

At a time when many high net worth and ultra-high net worth clients are business owners – something particularly notable in regions such as Asia – there is a growing demand for accurate, in-depth information about owners’ business valuations, their business risks, exposures and financing needs. Meanwhile, traditional wealth management business models are being challenged by so-called “robo-advisors” that use online, automated portfolio management and advice.

For wealth managers with assets under management of more than $100 million business owners account for around 25 per cent of clients and make up half of all prospects financial advisors and wealth managers are looking to attract, the firm says.

To compete with new online business models, wealth managers and insurance advisors are adopting new cloud-based big data technologies to offer clients additional tools and services such as business valuations and company performance analysis, which is where the new Advisor Office service comes in, BizEquity said in a statement.

“Advisor Office provides wealth management professionals, investment and insurance advisors with a dedicated platform that harnesses sophisticated algorithms and big data knowledge to help advisors better gauge the risk profile of clients and assess, for example, whether they are underinsured or underfinanced, through providing the most up-to-date company valuation data on their businesses,” the firm said. “The service also gives advisors new opportunities to begin conversations with potential clients and prospect smarter, armed with current valuations on their companies."

The service includes features such as a private-labelled cloud service. This is a branded online service to enable subscribers to present the BizEquity platform as a proprietary service to clients and prospects. There is also a prospector search and pre-value function, through which business owner prospects are “geolocated” and mapped, so subscribers can more efficiently look for prospects and carry out initial pre-valuations to showcase offerings.

Among the other features of the service are:

- A 29-page branded business valuation and performance report;
- Online reporting dashboard and reporting console for each office;
- Subscription options: a full “Advisor Office” subscription includes five valuations per month and a 200 company search allowance, or a limited version of the service is available to individual advisors.

BizEquity said it has signed agreements with over 30 financial institutions globally, including leading wealth management firms, financial advisors and international banks, including Metro Bank US, Dynasty Financial Partners in New York and one of the UK’s largest wealth management firms. Over the past 12 months BizEquity said it has logged rapid growth and to date has valued more than 29.4 million businesses worldwide, with turnovers ranging from $35,000 to $375 million.

In February this year, the company launched in the UK. It has since established UK headquarters at the "Level 39" accelerator in London’s Canary Wharf. Most recently, it set up an office in Singapore, in the start-up hub "Block 71", and has already signed up a number of financial advisors.