SEI adds fund portfolios to NEXT's new UMA platform

FWR Staff

13 October 2006

Investment-service provider links own platform to broker-dealer's offering. Broker-dealer NEXT Financial Group has added SEI to a list of third-party investment providers supporting NEXT's in-house Global Management Account (GMA) unified managed account (UMA) platform.

Houston-based NEXT, which has about 800 independent brokers, launched the GMA earlier this month. It has already gathered more than $10 million in client assets -- in transactions generally bigger than a NEXT broker's average fee-based sales, says NEXT's director of marketing Jim Manouse.

A first

Before SEI joined the mix, NEXT's GMA platform offered around 100 separately managed account (SMA) managers and mutual-fund wraps through Envestnet Asset Management, mutual-fund portfolios from AssetMark (soon to be part of Genworth Financial) and ICON Advisers, stock baskets from Standard & Poor's, a managed exchange-traded fund program from Quantitative Advantage, fixed-income portfolios from Gates Advisers and contributions from NEXT affiliates Page One Financial and LVZ Advisers.

The platform also features Pershing's daily performance reporting and consolidated, on-demand, client statements on fee-based and commission-based brokerage accounts.

SEI will add its seven most popular mutual-fund portfolios to the mix.

The deal has SEI agreeing, for the first time, to distribute its own investment platform to advisors through a broker-dealer's proprietary platform.

"This is really unique," says Manouse. "Where else can access SEI and AssetMark on the same platform?"

NEXT says the GMA has potential to become a significant source of new assets. "I think we've got something unlike anything else," says Manouse. "We've figured out how to get the advisor's fee- and commission business on a single platform." As a result, adds Manouse, the GMA has become an important part of the broker-dealer's recruitment efforts.

SEI says its participation in NEXT's GMA platform is in keeping with its recent pledge to provide better support to brokers and investment advisors. "This relationship model is a huge win for SEI, for NEXT and especially for advisors," says Chris Arizin, head of SEI's "National Accounts Team."

The National Accounts Team is a newly created group within SEI's Advisor Network unit focused on brokerage-based advisors.

Oaks, Pa.-based SEI's broad wealth-management platform provides independent advisors with third-party investment products in addition to marketing, practice management and client-relationship strategies. More than 6,000 independent advisors -- regisitered investment advisors and brokers -- use the Advisor Network. -FWR