Savant Wealth Joins Pontera’s 401(k) Management Platform

Pontera Solutions Inc., the financial technology firm that syncs financial advisers with clients’ retirement saving accounts, added another registered investment advisory partner, Savant Wealth, which manages more than $20 billion in client assets, the firms announced Thursday.

For Pontera, it marks another on a list of recent partnerships, including SageView Advisory Group and financial services firms Morningstar Inc. and Envestnet. For Savant, the relationship gives its advisers a more convenient way to manage a client’s in-plan investments along with the rest of their assets, according to Kevin Hrdlicka, chief operating officer for Savant Wealth.

“It can be challenging to provide [holistic] management when you can’t access a client’s retirement plan,” Hrdlicka says. “The best -case scenario is when we can see those [401(k)] assets in real time and incorporate them into their whole portfolio.”

Hrdlicka says Savant had been trying to work with clients’ 401(k) plan assets before the Pontera partnership, but the process could be cumbersome and costly due to security and compliance needs. That process often included the client sending an adviser a PDF statement of retirement plan investments, followed by the adviser sending back thoughts on management to be done by the client.

With the Pontera partnership, advisers get paid to manage participants’ 401(k) plan investments, Hrdlicka says, with pricing dependent on the size of the client’s account and needs.

In-plan portfolio management is “an enormous market,” Hrdlicka says. “The potential is there to grow quite a bit. The focus for us, really, is giving advice on as much of the client’s situation as possible in order for us to be better advisers.”

Advisers have often recommended that participants roll funds into an individual retirement account, which often happens in the later stages of a person’s career, to allow the advisers to manage the investments,. The ability to keep them in plan for a fee means less pressure to have them roll out, notes Peter Nolan, vice president of enterprise at Pontera.

“When it comes time to roll over, you have the option to stay in plan if that service is offering the best options,” Nolan says. “This is important in reducing conflict of interest from a [Department of Labor] perspective. … It’s truly impartial advice on where the client can keep their assets.”

Hrdlicka also sees an opportunity for advisers to work with younger clients, who are likely to have a significant chunk of their assets in workplace retirement savings.

Pontera’s partnership with Envestnet, Savant’s portfolio management platform, helped lead to the deal, according to the companies. Nolan also noted that Pontera initially met with Savant at a conference more than two years ago.

“It was a relationship we’d been seeking to develop for a long time,” he says.

Savant, which received minority investment from private equity firm Kelso & Co. in 2021, has acquired seven advisory firms this year to date, according to the announcement.