Episode summary
How UMAs Help Advisors Serve High-Net-Worth Clients at Scale
Summary
Andrew Stavaridis says unified managed accounts are resonating with enterprise and RIA clients because they give advisers flexibility in how much of the portfolio construction and monitoring they keep versus delegate. He argues that high-net-worth clients want more personalization, and UMAs let advisers manage sleeves themselves, use third-party SMA products or fund strategists, add alternatives, and apply overlays such as tax management and direct indexing.
He also frames alternatives as being where SMAs were 20 years ago: available in theory, but still too operationally fragmented. According to Andrew Stavaridis, the missing piece is an end-to-end infrastructure that connects onboarding, education, account opening, trading windows and reporting so advisers can use alternatives without added complexity. He says that once the workflow is simplified and scalable inside a platform, more flows into alternatives should follow.
On wealthtech partnerships, Andrew Stavaridis says the key measure is whether integrations make the advisor experience more seamless and scalable. He says Envestnet wants to integrate its own capabilities while still partnering with outside vendors when it helps advisers, especially around tools like CRM and AI onboarding.
Key takeaways
- Andrew Stavaridis says UMAs matter because they let advisers choose between self-managing sleeves and delegating portfolio management to an asset manager or third party PM.
- He says high-net-worth advisers want more personalization, including tax overlays, direct indexing and the ability to add alternatives into one portfolio structure.
- Andrew Stavaridis compares alternatives today to SMAs 20 years ago: available, but not yet simple enough operationally for broad adoption.
- He says democratizing alternatives requires connected onboarding, education, trading and reporting, not just product access.
- He says the best platform integrations are the ones that improve adviser flexibility, efficiency and scale, even if they involve outside vendors.
Notable quotes
“it's really flexible in the way that advisers can leverage the capabilities”
“the selection of investments that they can choose. So they can either choose to to manage sleeve themselves”
“Most advisers today are shifting more towards turning that capability over to an investment or an asset manager”
“Ultimately, it's about scale. It's about allowing the advisor to to to meet them where they, you know, are doing their practice”
How the episode opens
High net worth clients want more personalization and more access. I'm joined by Andrew Stavaritus to hear how um can help. Andrew, thank you so much for joining me. — Thank you for having me.
So popular topic right now when it comes to um what capabilities are resonating most with enterprise and RA clients right now? I think specifically with um our you know it's really flexible in the way that advisers can leverage the capabilities. So an advisor that actually wants to manage the sleeves, manage the underlying holdings, manage the products can do it themselves through our all the way out to the higher end where an advisor wants to turn over all of that capability to an asset manager, InvestNet or even a a third party PM.
That's the flexibility that we provide in our MMA and that's what in high net worth advisor are looking for both at the enterprise level and at the REA level and that's unique in how investments works today
And I think you said it perfectly there. It's all about the flexibility. So how does the MA structure specifically change the way advisors manage high net worth portfolios?
So there's a couple things. One advisor the the selection of investments that they can choose. So they can either choose to to manage sleeve themselves actually be uh the manager of one of the sleeves.
They can bring in other thirdparty SMA products or even fund strategists or they can they can bring in some type of alternative investment into the overall to round out the portfolio. they can either turn to to manage themselves or there on an ongoing basis try to you know pick the sleeves over overlay or turn it over from an overlay perspective to an investment have tax overlay have DI added to it more personalization.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- unified managed accounts
- high-net-worth clients
- advisor scalability
- alternative investments access
- platform integration
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Envestnet
Watch the episode
Watch “How UMAs Help Advisors Serve High-Net-Worth Clients at Scale” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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