Taiko has upgraded its model marketplace to provide a customizable menu of alternative investments, separately managed accounts and model portfolio strategies for independent registered investment advisors.
The platform, which began operating in November, is a unit of $15 billion investment consultants Taiber Kosmala and Associates. In addition to model strategies, Taiko provides technology, trading and billing tools for RIAs, national advisory firms, broker-dealers and trust companies.
The upgrade aims to help Taiko deliver strategies more efficiently to RIAs via a new digital portal, which allows clients to access, organize and customize strategies, Taiko Managing Partner Joe Taiber said.
The firm works with about 25 to 30 small- and mid-sized independent RIAs to create a custom suite of white-label and third-party investment strategies. Taiber Kosmala performs due diligence on the strategies.
Collectively, RIAs are utilizing about 250 custom-built strategies – a mix of alternatives, equity and fixed income SMAs and multi-asset class strategies through exchange-traded funds and mutual funds – on Taiko’s platform, Taiber said.
RIAs access their own menu, or gallery, of products that are specifically built for individual practices, Taiber added. The number of strategies for each RIA varies.
“Firms that come to us don’t really have a well-articulated roster of approved strategies, [so] Taiko introduces this whole concept of an approved roster of strategies,” he said. “The strategy gallery really is how that's being … distributed to that end client.”
As of March, the platform had nearly $610 million in discretionary assets under management and nearly $2 billion in assets under advisement, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. Taiber declined to disclose the roughly 250 to 300 third-party managers on Taiko’s platform.
“We’re going to be continually sourcing new managers, new strategies across traditional and alts spectrums,” he said.
The alternatives strategies offered through the platform include hedge funds, private equity, private credit, real assets, and other private market strategies that are primarily accessed directly or through interval funds and master feeder-fund structures, Taiber said.
Taiko’s “gallery” tool also removes a number of manual processes, allows advisors to simplify workflows and streamlines the investment process, according to a news release. It also provides “filterable” details about investment strategies and includes updates to help advisors more effectively communicate with clients.
The upgrade comes as more RIAs outsource investment management to minimize the squeeze on margins stemming from declining markets and higher operational costs, said Tim Welsh, president of Nexus Strategy.
Family offices, multi-family offices and large RIAs have internal research capabilities to perform due diligence on private market strategies, which have seen increased demand among smaller RIAs, Craig Kilgallen, a relationship manager at Fuse Research, told FundFire.
“As you try to go down market, it really is about having scale and time,” he said. “Being able to outsource … and access [Taiko’s] research, particularly on the private investment side … and get customized investment reporting that I could share with my clients … streamlines [advisors’] capabilities and frees up their time to do more on the client service side.”
Originally published by: https://www.fundfire.com/c/4007804/519164/advisor_platform_launches_portal_custom_strategies