Money Management Institute offers new CFP and NASD credit courses. The Money Management Institute (MMI), a Washington, D.C.-based association of separately managed account (SMA) managers and sponsors, has unveiled a new SMA training course for financial advisors. The course includes an SMA-industry overview, insights on transitioning to an investment-consulting business model and information on SMAs including wealth-management approaches employing unified managed accounts and other multiple-discipline portfolios.

With SMA assets under management past the $775-billion mark and fee-based business models gaining increasing popularity, the MMI figures it's important for financial advisors of all stripes to have a good grasp of SMA strategies. "Financial advisors' use of SMAs will accelerate as the boomer generation enters retirement," the MMI says in a press blurb. "Firms anticipating the upsurge in wealth and retirement-income management see SMAs as an important solution to the problems facing boomers as they retire."

Room for more

Well, some do anyway. A good third of all wirehouse brokers may use SMAs to some extent, but only about 9% of registered investment advisors (RIAs) could say the same in 2005, according to Tiburon Strategic Advisors, a Tiburon, Calif.-based consultancy. And of course RIAs make up the fastest growing advisory segment in terms of assets under management.

The MMI's SMA course modules include Creating a Financial Profile and Investment Policy Statement, Manager Search and Selection, Manager Monitoring and Evaluation, Client/Portfolio Review, Managed Accounts v. Mutual Funds and The Unified Managed Account.

"Advisors interested in either entering the SMA space or improving their service to clients should find the modules to be a helpful tool," says MMI chairman Len Reinhart, who is also president of Lockwood, a third-party investment platform provider owned by Pershing, a subsidiary of the Bank of New York.

The course, which the MMI offers in partnership with Success CE, an Irvine, Calif.-based continuing-education material supplier to the financial-service and insurance industries, is doled out in two parts. Each part costs $49.95.

Some participants may qualify for Certified Financial Planner and NASD Firm Element credits after passing an online exam. -FWR

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