TD Ameritrade Offers UMAs
December 15, 2008
TD Ameritrade Institutional announced last week that it plans to let its registered investment advisers (RIAs) offer unified managed account (UMA) programs with Placemark Investments as the overlay manager.
"We strongly believe in the development of products that allow independent advisers to provide innovative wealth management solutions to their clients," said Brian Stimpfl, managing director of the institutional arm of TD Ameritrade, in a statement. "This will allow us to deliver a sophisticated managed account platform to advisers, including tax management, asset transition analysis and sleeve-level performance reporting." Unlike separately managed accounts, UMAs can include almost every asset in an investor's portfolio, including single stocks, mutual funds and hedge funds.
Beginning in early 2009, TD Ameritrade's 4,500 RIAs will be able to access fixed trading models and allocations based on research from Capital Market Consultants of Milwaukee, Wisc. Advisers can change model allocations and replace specific managers or funds, or configure investment vehicles and allocations based on their own strategies. TD Ameritrade offers 18 fixed asset allocations and 107 investment products.
Although Dallas-based Placemark offers its overlay management services to other advisers, the deal with TD Ameritrade marks the first time it will work through a custodian bank intermediary in an integrated manner. "What is unique is the level of flexibility given the RIAs to change their asset allocations," said Stimpfl in an interview. "In addition, the RIAs can now work directly through TD Ameritrade's Veo platform."
Placemark EVP Randy Bullard cited the efficiencies generated when an RIA works with a single platform. "RIAs will have a single integrated solution that marries the TD Ameritrade custodial platform with Placemark's overlay management services," said Bullard. Placemark, which services $4 billion in assets, is one of the largest overlay managers in the U.S.
