Wealth management firm Yellow Brick Road (YBR) has revealed its menu of preferred model portfolio providers for its unified managed account (UMA) solution known as Wealth Pathway.
The managers include Dalton Nicol Reid, Above The Index Asset Management, Proactive Portfolios, Platypus Asset Management, JBWere, Ralton Asset Management and SG Hiscock & Company.
“We will draw on these and others as the marketplace changes,” YBR chief operating officer Bryn Nicholson said.
“We are agnostic about fund managers in the sense that we believe you need a range of fund managers providing model portfolios, including small cap, large cap, satellite/core, a whole range of different approaches, and there is an emerging population of good SMA (separately managed account) model portfolio providers which we can tap into.”
“There are pretty good model portfolio providers out there that provide excellent services and overall are very well priced compared to what you pay for those in a managed fund.”
YBR and OneVue teamed up last year to deliver the UMA, which allowed investors to manage all their investments and asset classes, including stocks, bonds and managed funds, through one account.
Nicholson said SMA and UMA solutions provided better after-tax returns, lower administration costs, transparency and a sense of control, and could also help lower risk.
“If we change asset allocations during bear markets or periods of higher volatility, the transparency and low transaction costs of SMA/UMA platforms make it easier to respond quickly, and in this case alerts based on out-of-range moves are desirable,” he said.
“By contrast, investors are very unlikely to be advised to sell managed funds during market disruptions. “
YBR has funds under management or advice of $400 million and was formed by Mark Bouris in 2007.
