AllianceBernstein (“AB”) (NYSE: AB), a leading research and global investment firm, announced today a new partnership with Vestmark, Inc. a leading provider of wealth management solutions and services for financial advisors and institutions. This partnership leverages AB’s state-of-the-art municipal technology, AbbieOptimizer, to bring a new Custom Municipal SMA Solutions platform to market.
AbbieOptimizer, AB’s high-tech answer to today’s muni market, integrates research, pricing, trading, and portfolio construction into one dynamic system that streamlines the design of customized muni strategies. Through this first-of-its-kind partnership with Vestmark, advisors and clients can create customized muni solutions through AbbieOptimizer’s capabilities.
“At AllianceBernstein, we are continually focused on investing in disruptive, innovative technology that delivers differentiated value to our clients,” said Jim Switzer, Global Head of Fixed Income Trading and Head of Municipal Bonds at AllianceBernstein. “After building and utilizing AbbieOptimizer internally across our suite of municipal products, we are excited to partner with Vestmark in order to expand our technology and unique offerings with an even broader set of clients.”
The partnership with Vestmark combats many of the challenges facing the fast-moving and fragmented muni market. AbbieOptimizer allows AB to more efficiently source and engage municipal bond liquidity, resulting in faster funding times, better pricing, and the ability to continuously tax optimize portfolios through SMAs.
The VestmarkONE platform provides seamless connectivity to major custodians and their registered investment advisor (RIA) clients to get timely and accurate tax-lot data for efficient trading and optimization. This scalable joint solution allows advisors to create highly customized fixed-income solutions for SMA clients that reflect their specific preferences and tax situations.
The combination of AbbieOptimizer and VestmarkONE delivers cutting edge tech-powered alphas to client municipal portfolios. Speed Alpha, Trading Alpha and Tax Alpha are examples of big data infused optimization techniques that are increasingly important as investors search for income and return in their municipal allocations.
“For the first time, financial advisors are gaining the ability to provide personalized and tax-optimized fixed-income SMA portfolios in an automated and scalable way – a great leap forward for wealth management enterprises looking to provide distinctive portfolios to a wider range of clients across the wealth spectrum,” said Mike Blundin, CEO of Vestmark. “Delivering innovative solutions to investors and financial advisors is core to Vestmark so we are delighted to work with an innovator like AB and be part of their pioneering solution to bring greater customization, efficiency and scalability to fixed-income SMA offerings.”
As part of this partnership, advisors and firms utilizing Vestmark’s Manager Marketplace will now have access to AbbieOptimizer as a custom solution on the platform.
For more information on AB’s Custom Municipal SMA Solutions, visit alliancebernstein.com.
