Advisor-support group gives do-it-yourselfers wider selection of managers. Pershing Advisor Solutions has launched a new separately managed account (SMA) platform for registered investment advisors (RIAs) who want the freedom to vet and select asset managers from a very wide universe of choices.

"Managed Account Direct" gives RIAs that work with Pershing the freedom in turn to work with any manager to which Pershing, one of the biggest custody and clearing firms around, can provide connectivity - and it's ready in a matter of hours to achieve connectivity with any manager out there, says Pershing Advisor Solutions John Iachello, who runs Advisor Solutions.

Portable

This breadth of selection distinguishes Managed Account Direct from plug-and-play platforms that are available to RIAs that use Pershing. Among those providing such solutions through Pershing are Envestnet Asset Management, AssetMark Investment Services, PlaceMark Investments and Lockwood Advisors, a subsidiary of Pershing.

In fact Managed Account Direct may be as far removed from the pre-packaged approach as a platform can be, since it calls for the advisor to select and run risk analysis on managers and then enter into direct contracts with those they select.

Pershing is in no sense a sponsor of Managed Account Direct, though it does take on middle- and back-office duties.

TJ Gilsenan, an Advisor Solutions director charged with expanding the unit's client base, says Pershing was eager to expand its SMA offering to include a direct-to-manager offering to appeal to RIAs who are active portfolio managers

It may also attract wirehouse reps who would go indie but for having to abandon managers they'd used to build their books, says Iachello.

Similar

Managed Account Direct reminds Randy Bullard, president of Dallas-based Placemark, of Charles Schwab's "Marketplace" SMA platform. "It's a lot like Schwab Marketplace; it's the barebones plumbing," he says.

But Gilsenan, whom Pershing hired away from Schwab about a year ago, says Managed Account Direct is anything but a carbon copy of Schwab Marketplace. "We pick up where everybody else leaves off," he says, adding that none of the two or three other broad-based, direct-access SMA platforms specifically for RIAs include account set-up, transition processing, maintenance, money movement, tax management tools and fee billing.

But when FWR briefed Schwab on Pershing's Managed Account Direct, the San Francisco-based service agency couldn't see how it differed from its own Marketplace - "Not without knowing more about it," says Jeff Carlin, head of Schwab's managed account business.

Iachello says Managed Account Direct saw $200 million in inflows in its first week earlier this month.

Pershing processes about $45 billion in SMA assets specifically for RIAs.

Jersey City, N.J.-based Pershing is a unit of the Bank of New York. -FWR

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