Tag Archives: NorthStar

Marcus by Goldman Sachs acquires Clarity Money: Flash briefing for April 16, 2018

Here are the links to today’s top stories.

Marcus by Goldman Sachs® Announces Acquisition of Clarity Money from Businesswire.com

United Capital Makes FinLife Platform Compatible with Other CRMs from Wealthmanagement.com

NorthStar Financial Agrees to Acquire FTJ FundChoice from Businesswire.com

Orion Advisor Services is one of my consulting clients. See my full disclosures at fppad.com/disclaimer

Welcome to the FPPad fintech briefing, I’m back from spring break, so here are the top fintech stories you need to know today

Marcus by Goldman Sachs® Acquires Clarity Money

Goldman Sachs, one of the largest investment banks in the world, is becoming a bigger player in the personal financial management space as it just completed its acquisition of a budgeting app called Clarity Money. First reported by Bloomberg back in February, the acquisition rolls in Clarity Money’s one million users into Goldman Sachs’ direct to consumer financial services brand that goes by the name Marcus, which currently offers no-fee fixed rate personal loans and high-yield savings accounts to consumers.

Terms of the the deal were not disclosed, but Clarity Money reportedly raised $14.5 million dollars in two rounds from its investors since 2016 according to data from Crunchbase.

United Capital Financial Advisors Introduces FinLife CX

United Capital Financial Advisors, the nationwide $20 billion dollar rollup firm, announced an update to its FinLife technology platform called FinLife CX that will allow financial advisers to use the proprietary platform without having to migrate from the CRM software they already use. Introduced in mid-2016, the FinLife platform heavily leverages Salesforce and the Heroku cloud development platform, so advisers traditionally had to convert their existing CRM data to Salesforce in the first few months of adopting the FinLife platform. With the introduction of FinLife CX, United Capital hopes to reach a wider segment of advisers interested in the the firm’s consolidated portfolio reporting, client portal, and advisor dashboard tools.

Orion Advisor Services Parent Company Acquires FTJ FundChoice

And finally, Orion Advisor Services is in the news once again as its parent company, NorthStar Financial, announced the acquisition of FTJ FundChoice, a turnkey asset management firm with approximately $10 billion in assets under administration. The deal will allow Orion to complement its technology platform with a mature asset management provider under a single contract and service agreement. For more information on the acquisition, I connected with Orion Advisor Services CEO Eric Clarke:

Thank you Bill. At NorthStar and especially at Orion, we’re excited to announce the acquisition of a decade-long client partner of ours, FTJ FundChoice. We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to work with Dean Cook and his team to bring FTJ’s managed account capabilities to our Orion advisors and enterprise-level prospects.

Orion Advisor Services is one of my consulting clients, so visit fppad.com/disclaimer for my full conflict of interest disclosure, and visit fppad.com/flashbriefing to get the links to all of today’s top stories.

I’m Bill Winterberg, and those are your fintech headlines for today from FPPad.com. Check back in with me later for more fintech news.

 

FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 20

On today’s broadcast, I have explosive news from eMoney, Riskalyze, Betterment, Schwab and Orion.

So buckle your seat belt, FPPad Bits and Bytes begins now!

(WatchFPPad Bits and Bytes on YouTube)

Today’s episode is brought to you by ITEGRIA, providers of complete outsourced technology support, security, infrastructure and IT solutions exclusively for RIAs.

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In their new book titled Red Flags, you’ll learn how to protect your firm from cyber-attacks, disasters, and IT compliance risks. Learn more about the Red Flags book by visiting fppad.com/itegria.

Here are the links to this week’s top stories:

eMoney Reveals New emX Select Dashboard At 2015 T3 Conference from WealthManagement.com

[Now you probably know that the Super Bowl of advisor technology, a.k.a. the T3 conference, was held in Dallas last week. By last count, there were over 40 press releases made at the event, but since this is just a five minute show, here are my picks for the most important stories.

First up is eMoney Advisor, as their CEO Edmund Walters took the stage with no slide deck, no apologies, and proceeded to shock the audience with a preview of emX Select, completed by a video filled with explosions.

Awesome, right?!? On everyone’s mind was the Fidelity acquisition, so Walters told the packed ballroom eMoney “had to sell” because “this tech is expensive” and he wants to “kick the crap out of the B2C” robo advisors (implosion!).

I told you, ! No apologies.

From what I’ve seen so far, emX Select resembles the Veo One™ dashboard recently announced by TD Ameritrade Institutional (you did watch my Veo One coverage, right?) but eMoney aims to have 28 integrations by September, which beats the 11 integrations planned for Veo One, one of which includes eMoney Advisor. Interesting!] On Friday at the 2015 T3 Conference in Dallas, eMoney Advisor, recently acquired by Fidelity for $250 million, gave advisors the first look at its new emX Select platform.

CLS Investments and Riskalyze Join Forces to Launch Autopilot, Arming Advisors With the Digital Tools Needed to Neutralize Robo-Threat from Riskalzye, and

Riskalyze Reinvents the Client Meeting from Riskalyze

[Next up is Riskalyze, as CEO Aaron Klein announced a new partnership with Omaha-based CLS Investments to provide an end-to-end online investment service called Autopilot. At a high level, Autopilot is similar to Betterment Institutional, Upside, JemStep and others where clients answer an online questionnaire and can then invest directly in a recommended portfolio allocation based on their answers.

Klein also demonstrated a new tool called Meetings, a simple way advisors can conduct screen sharing with remote clients without exposing private data, embarrassing cat videos, or the random Godzilla attack (woah!) that might pop up on an advisor’s screen. Meetings comes out February 23rd, so make sure you give it a try.] Autopilot Will Offer Automated Asset Management and Risk Measurement, Embedded Into an Advisory Firm’s Existing Website.

Betterment Valued At Nearly $500 Million In New Round from the Wall St. Journal

[And let’s crush this broadcast (woah!) with a quick roundup of other news: Betterment just raised another $60 million in venture capital for a total of $105 million. What are they going to do with the cash? Betterment CEO Jon Stein says they’re going to refine algorithms to answer questions like “Am I saving enough relative to my goals?” Warning: financial planning algorithms ahead!] New York-based Betterment is closing a new $60 million round, the company is set to announce on Thursday.

Schwab tells the SEC its robo-advisor has a 30 basis-point fee and big-time cash allocations held by Schwab Bank from RIABiz.com, and

Schwab Wealth Investment Advisory, Inc. Schwab Intelligent Portfolios™ Disclosure Brochure from SEC.gov

[Schwab’s Form ADV for their Intelligent Portfolios robo-solution revealed the service is “technically” free, but they will use client cash, aka the “sweep allocation” for Schwab Bank activity where Schwab earns income on the spread, so Intelligent Portfolios discloses that most strategies maintain a higher sweep allocation than other providers designed to fully invest client cash. But hey, it’s “free” and consumers LOVE free!] The Charles Schwab Corp. will charge a fee of 30 basis points to clients of its robo-advisor, but those investors will not pay it out of pocket because Schwab affiliates will reimburse the client behind the scenes, according to SEC documents relating to Schwab Intelligent Portfolios.

TA Associates to acquire majority interest in NorthStar from Orion Advisor Services

[And finally, private equity firm TA Associates recently signed an agreement to acquire a majority interest in NorthStar Financial Services Group, the parent company of Orion Advisor Services, CLS Investments, Gemini Fund Services and six other sister companies. So you’ve been asking me, is this good or bad, specifically for Orion. I believe it’s good, and here’s why: Orion has a strong track record of growth, Orion’s leadership will remain in place, the company remains privately held, and now there’s extra cash available for strategic opportunities.] TA Associates, a leading global growth private equity firm, today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a majority interest in NorthStar Financial Services Group, LLC, and its nine subsidiary wealth management industry service providers.

 Here are stories that didn’t make this week’s broadcast:

Advicent Unveils Narrator™, a Tool for Advisors to Fight Commoditization, at T3 Conference from Advicent.com

Advicent Solutions announced at the 2015 T3 (Technology Tools for Today) Conference at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas, Texas, that it is launching a new product for the North American market—the Narrator™ application builder. The product is available to buy immediately.

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 20, 2015

Watch FPPad Bits and Bytes for February 20, 2015

Orion Advisor Services parent company Northstar to be acquired by private equity firm TA Associates

TA Associates to acquire NorthStar Financial Services Group, parent company of Orion Advisor Services

Hot off the wires this morning (thank you FiComm) is news of another acquisition in the advisor fintech space.

Today, private equity firm TA Associates announced an agreement to acquire a majority interest in NorthStar Financial Services Group, LLC.

Orion Advisor Services included in the deal

Orion Advisor Services

NorthStar has nine subsidiaries under the company, with Orion Advisor Services, LLC being the most recognizable to advisers interested in financial technology solutions for their business. Collectively, NorthStar and its subsidiaries manage and administer roughly $275 billion in assets, with Orion making up at least $180 billion of that amount (see: Orion Celebrates Fifteen Years of Serving Advisors With Record Growth from Marketwired.com)

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This comes on the heels of two acquisitions announced last week. First, Fidelity announced a deal to acquire eMoney for a rumored amount of $250 million according to sources close to the deal, followed by an announcement by SS&C Technologies to acquire Advent Software for $2.7 billion.

With three M&A deals in one week, financial technology service providers are proving to be attractive targets for acquisition.

The Future of FinTech M&A

Looking to the future, these deals seem to validate two trends in the industry. First, independent advisory firms continue to seek ways to scale their operational efficiency, and trusted third party providers offer attractive solutions to achieve such goals. Outsourced portfolio management (Orion Advisor Services and Advent Software) and account aggregation, client portals, and streamlined financial planning (eMoney Advisor) give advisers the leverage they need to growth their business without having to add significant overhead or add to the headcount of the firm.

Second, independent advisory firms are poised to continue to attract business from clients and investors dissatisfied with traditional wirehouse and brokerage providers, which may lead to a significant shift in asset flows away from transaction- and product-oriented businesses to fiduciary advice offered by independent RIAs.

Since M&A activity has dramatically picked up in 2015, here’s my question to you:

Who’s next?