Investment advisory signs on for back-office, and investment-research support. American Reliance Group (ARG), an investment advisory registered in the State of Washington that provides retirement- and estate-planning services to individuals and couples in or near retirement, has selected wealth-management platform maker FundQuest to provide its back-office and investment-research services.

FundQuest got the nod "because of [its] open-architecture product offerings" support ARG's determination to maintain "the independence of not being tied to a single brand or set of products," says ARG's president and founder Kelly Ruggles, who is also a chartered life underwriter. "We were also looking for rigorous investment research, high quality back-office-administrative services, and performance reporting that is easy for our clients to understand."

Sliding scale

Sixteen-year-old FundQuest has around 180 advisory firms as clients. It also provides unified managed accounts, mutual-fund wraps, hybrid active and passive portfolios, separately managed accounts, income portfolios, trust services, annuities, ETFs, and alternative investments to brokerages, banks and insurance providers of all sizes.

FundQuest can accomodate such a wide range of distributors -- from big regionals to advisories, like Spokane-based ARG, with less than $100 million under management -- because of its pricing system, according to FundQuest account manager Maryanne Morrow. "FundQuest's variable cost service model, based on assets under management, makes it possible for ARG to maintain control over their margins as their business expands," she says. "ARG can deliver high-quality services, grow their client base, and add new products without major expenditures for technology or administrative resources."

Boston-based FundQuest, a subsidiary of Paris-based BNP Paribas since late 2005, has around $40 billion in assets under management and administration in the U.S. and Europe. -FWR

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