CONTEXT

Our client, a leading Australian wealth manager and financial services provider, was keen to understand the opportunities available in the emerging Separately Managed Account (SMA) platform space.  The client had a large existing business spread across 2 existing platforms – an older master trust, and a newer wrap platform.  It was receiving feedback from its financial adviser force that its existing platforms were not flexible enough to manage the breadth of assets in which clients were seeking to invest.

 APPROACH

CACE Partners developed a market entry strategy, using a hypothesis driven approach, to enable the client to understand the opportunities and risks associated with the development of a new SMA platform.  Once the strategy was approved by the executive team, a collaborative team of CACE Partners, seconded client staff and a few contracted SMEs was assembled to specify the market offering and develop / source the required technology, processes and tools.  A pilot offering was soft launched with a selected group of advisers to test and refine the offering.  The pilot approach provided invaluable insights, which were incorporated into the commercial product specification.  Once the offer was finalised a commercially robust and highly scalable version was developed for broad rollout.

RESULTS

The SMA has attracted ~$1B in new funds since deployment.