Service agency launches new campaign to persuade advisors to go independent. Schwab Institutional is distributing a new support package that is designed to encourage captive advisors to strike out on their own by launching independent firms and support its goal of doubling its affiliated client assets to $1 trillion by 2010.

"The moves we are making today are the first of many we will make in 2007 to help advisors who want to become independent,' says Barnaby Grist, managing director of business development for Schwab Institutional. "Schwab Institutional has been working with independent investment advisors for the past 20 years, but in the last two years we have seen a tremendous increase in the number of advisors who are choosing to break out on their own."

Partnerships

A crucial part of Schwab Institutional's new push for business is a real-estate partnership with El Segundo, Calif.-based CB Richard Ellis, which is meant to give advisors access to a team that can provide transaction and project-management support and negotiate real-estate costs for new firms. Advisors also get discounts on some services, such as postage and shipping.

Another partnership, this time with New York-based Marsh Affinity Group Services, will give advisors personalized service and preferred pricing on errors and omissions insurance -- a benefit that were previously available only to Schwab-affiliated firms with more than $100 million in assets under management.

Schwab Institutional has also launched a business-loan program to lend start-up capital to advisors who are assured of at least $75 million in assets under management. Loan amounts begin at $100,000, depending on creditworthiness.

To help advisors learn more about making the move to independence Schwab Institutional has set up a website -- which, so far at least, looks exactly like a pre-existing "About Schwab Institutional" site. It is also launching a print and online ad campaign to run throughout 2007 in major advisor trade outlets and in business media outlets like Barron's and the Wall Street Journal.

San Francisco-based Schwab Institutional provides custodial, operational and trading support for more than 5,000 independent investment advisors. Its affiliated client assets came to $502 billion at the end of 2006. -FWR

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