Products May 12, 2022

Investment Product and Service Launches

Alquity and Spouting Rock to launch new U.S. ESG investing platform; State Street Global Advisors launches new ETF; Northern Trust partners with Enfusion as part of whole office strategy; and more.

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Art by Jackson Epstein

Art by Jackson Epstein





Dimensional Lists New ETF and Completes Mutual-Fund-to-ETF Conversion

Dimensional Fund Advisors, a global specialist in systematic investing, has expanded its exchange-traded funds offerings with the listing of the firm’s U.S. Marketwide Value ETF.

The new fund is the result of Dimensional’s conversion of its tax-managed U.S. Marketwide Value Portfolio II mutual fund into an active transparent ETF. The firm says this is the seventh and final planned conversion of tax-managed mutual funds into ETFs completed since June 2021.

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The new fund, which is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, features a net expense ratio of 0.23%. It is described as a U.S. market solution that emphasizes companies with low prices in relation to their book values and targets higher expected returns and consistent exposure through a daily flexible process.

Dimensional says its ETF suite complements the firm’s existing mutual funds and expanded separately managed accounts offerings, providing further choice in how clients access Dimensional’s research-driven investment process.

Northern Trust Partners with Enfusion as Part of Whole Office Strategy

Northern Trust has established a relationship with Enfusion Inc., a provider of cloud-native investment management software and services, to provide portfolio support and new order/execution management and analytics capabilities to mutual clients. 

Through this collaboration, Enfusion and Northern Trust say they can offer asset managers, hedge funds and internally managed asset owner clients with a fully integrated, end-to-end solution that streamlines workflows while leveraging each company’s strengths. 

As a software-as-a-service platform provider, Enfusion has based its operations in the cloud since its inception in 2006. The firm delivers portfolio management, trade execution, order management and risk management functionality from a single platform, with the goal of removing operational and technical barriers that asset managers and hedge funds face. The software components work from a single, unified dataset, keeping investment and accounting books of record in sync throughout the trading day, so the front-, middle- and back-offices all have access to the same information.

According to the firms, the new alliance will enable mutually supported interfaces between the Enfusion platform and Northern Trust’s core asset servicing platforms, thus expediting implementation capabilities, improving data access and increasing operational efficiency. Clients will also have access to dedicated service teams from both companies. 

Building on the alliance, Enfusion has co-developed a certified, mutually supported interface with Northern Trust partner Equity Data Science Inc., which is in use by several joint clients. EDS offers a cloud-based platform that provides applications and decision-support tools to asset managers and hedge funds across the investment lifecycle, including idea generation, research management, portfolio construction, risk management and performance attribution.

Northern Trust Whole Office is an open architecture, multi-asset class strategy serving diverse market participants including asset managers, asset owners, investors and third-party administrators. By integrating proprietary architecture with its partners, Northern Trust Whole Office seeks to facilitate client access to new technologies and capabilities across the spectrum of strategy and trading, operational, data and digital and analytics solutions.

Nuveen Introduces Retirement Investing Group

Nuveen has announced the launch of the Nuveen retirement investing group—a new client-business channel designed to bring Nuveen’s investment offerings to higher-education and not-for-profit plan sponsor and corporate clients while delivering TIAA’s retirement income capabilities to the defined contribution market. This news follows the launch of the TIAA Secure Income Account in January.

The new channel is led by Brendan McCarthy, who now reports to Mike Perry, head of Nuveen’s global client group, as a new member of the global client group leadership team. He will leverage the existing DC-investment-only distribution team and the broader relationships in place with investment consultants.

To deliver guaranteed lifetime income through sales and service of TIAA Traditional and RetirePlus products, McCarthy and his team will focus on providing investment and product expertise to retain and grow the allocation of Nuveen funds on plan menus. They will also coordinate the deployment of Nuveen’s investment, learning and development and marketing capabilities to support all client-facing teams. Additionally, they will continue introducing guaranteed lifetime income solutions to the DC market through positioning of the recently launched secure income account.

The Nuveen Retirement Investing team will partner with TIAA’s client relationship regional general managers, including Ben Lewis, head of TIAA institutional strategic sales, and David Swallow, head of TIAA consultant relations.

State Street Global Advisors Launches New ETF

State Street Global Advisors, the asset management business of State Street Corporation, has announced the launch of the SPDR MarketAxess Investment Grade 400 Corporate Bond ETF. Designed to blend the advantages of an ETF with the tradability benefits of U.S investment-grade corporate bonds that have higher liquidity compared to the broader U.S. corporate bond market, the new ETF strives to offer investors credit exposure with the potential for tighter bid-ask spreads, lower premiums and discounts and more transparency in the underlying holdings’ real-time valuations.

According to the firm, fixed-income markets are evolving with smarter electronic trading protocols, more sophisticated and automated investment strategies and greater availability of useful data. As such, the firm says, MarketAxess U.S. Investment Grade 400 Corporate Bond Index is a more data-driven approach to indexation and aims to pave the way for improved index and portfolio construction.

The SPDR MarketAxess Investment Grade 400 Corporate Bond ETF seeks to track the MarketAxess U.S. Investment Grade 400 Corporate Bond Index. The index measures the performance of 400 U.S. dollar denominated investment-grade corporate bonds with higher-than-average liquidity relative to the broader U.S. corporate bond market. Powered by MarketAxess’ proprietary liquidity and pricing data— Relative Liquidity Score and Composite+ pricing engine—the index combines actionable liquidity with broad market exposure.

Alquity and Spouting Rock to Launch New U.S. ESG Investing Platform

Alquity, a responsible investment manager based in London, and U.S.-based Spouting Rock Asset Management have announced a joint venture and the creation of a new platform to give U.S. investors access to a greater range of ESG and impact-focused funds. 

The partnership will create a distribution platform for Alquity’s funds in the U.S., including its Global Impact Fund and Future World Global Emerging Markets Fund. The partnership also includes Alquity’s Indian Subcontinent Fund.

ESG-focused funds globally saw their combined assets climb to $3.9 trillion in the third quarter of 2021, according to data compiled by Morningstar. While Europe remains the stand-out leader in sustainable funds, both the U.S. and Canada remain early-stage markets. The mission of the new investment and distribution platform is to accelerate the multibillion-dollar ESG and impact investing opportunity in North America.

Spouting Rock, which is also investing in Alquity, provides alternative, traditional and thematic investment solutions that seek to enhance portfolios and protect wealth. This joint venture is the latest addition to the firm’s curated manager platform of well-vetted, active investment solutions.

In Practice May 12, 2022

Industry Changes Reflected in NFP Business Realignment

The firm says its personnel changes will help it meet clients “wherever they are” and address the needs of plan sponsors, family offices and high-net-worth individuals equally.

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This week, NFP announced the reorganization of its business segments to better meet the needs of its clients.

As the firm tells PLANADVISER, moving forward, there will be three “distinct yet integrated” business segments. These are property and casualty; benefits and life; and wealth and retirement. According to the firm, this new approach will allow the company to sharpen its focus on delivering holistic guidance to clients.

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“This realignment better integrates our offerings,” says Doug Hammond, NFP’s chairman and CEO. “Our expertise and best-in-class consultants and advisers give plan sponsors, family offices and high-net-worth individuals a trusted partner they can rely on to successfully pursue their goals.”

Each business segment will continue to operate in the areas it knows best to service specific challenges in complex environments, and the segments will communicate and collaborate as needed.

The firm wants to be able to equally address the needs of plan sponsors, family offices and high-net-worth individuals, says Mike Goldman, NFP’s chief operating officer. They feel like they have well-rounded offerings for all the different types of companies they serve.

“The real goal is to be able to meet client’s needs wherever they are, whether that’s at the corporate level or the individual level,” Goldman says. “We strive to able to provide an incredibly effective set of services to those folks so that we can really be their trusted adviser across the board.”

As noted by Goldman and Hammond, the change also reflects the increased scale of NFP’s wealth management and retirement businesses, which has a combined total of approximately $445 billion in assets under management. Through the acquisition of financial advisory businesses and significant investments in people and technology, the company says it has expanded its capabilities across individual wealth management and institutional asset management services.

Within the NFP family of brands, Wealthspire Advisors provides financial planning and investment expertise for high-net-worth families, individuals and family offices. Fiducient Advisors provides advisory services for retirement plan sponsors, endowments and foundations, private clients and financial institutions.

Goldman says NFP has done a number of acquisitions over the past decade to increase its presence in the wealth management and retirement space, with the goal of increasing its geographic presence and rounding out its suite of services in each of the serviced regions.

The firm has seen many advantages as it continues to scale, Goldman says. Greater scale enables the firm to have the best people available and to make the best investments using the best services and technology, he says. Further, scaling geographically means NFP can “meet people where they are at.”

“You’re able to make sure that you have access to the to the most attractive investment options for your clients and an ability to demonstrate to them the type of service that you need to be able to provide, Goldman says. “[You] then also have the technology that allows them to very seamlessly see their data and access their data in any way that they want.”

The challenge is making sure that the firm is able to maintain its culture, Goldman says. He wants people to feel connected to the broader organization.

“I think you have to be you have to be very deliberate about making sure to both acquire the right firms with the right cultural fit, and then really spend the time to make sure that the people are highly engaged, in that they have a chance to spend time together, because I think that’s what ends up building the strongest culture,” Goldman says. “That’s the biggest challenge, and it’s one we’re very focused on.”

The reorganization will allow NFP’s clients, acquisitions, acquisition prospects and investors to have an open look into the size and quality of the retirement and wealth business, Goldman says. They wanted to make it easier for people to see. People may have associated the firm with the insurance brokerage side of the business, but he believes that they do retirement and wealth just as well.

“We’ve built something special in our wealth management and retirement businesses, and we believe we can go even further for our clients,” says Ed O’Malley, executive vice president, head of insurance brokerage and consulting. “The diversity within our platform is key. Whether it’s an employee planning for their future, a plan sponsor eager to retain their talent, a family office helping a client leave a legacy or a mission-based foundation, NFP has a portfolio of exceptional advisers and solutions to help them succeed.”

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