SMA firm says big wholesale headcount needed to provide high-touch services. Models-based separately managed account (SMA) platform provider Curian Capital plans to hire 21 new wholesalers over the next few months. The Denver-based firm says it needs extra bodies to cope with the new business it has brought in so far this year and to provide high-touch services to advisors.

"We are seeing an increased demand for dedicated business-consulting and practice-management support, particularly as more financial professionals transition to advisory business," says Curian's CEO Michael Bell. "Financial professionals are also requesting additional business-building tools and asset-management guidance.

Up to 80

The latest ramp-up marks Curian's first significant wholesale drive since 2006, when it added nine sales staffers.

In the new round of hires, Curian will appoint 10 external wholesalers, 10 internal wholesalers, and a divisional vice president, bringing Curian's total distribution force to 80.

That gives Curian, a firm with $3.4 billion in assets under management as of 30 June 2008, one of the largest wholesale forces in the retail SMA space.

In fact third-party SMA providers with 10 times its assets under management get by -- very well, they say -- with a dozen or so wholesalers.

But Curian needs the extra manpower to provide high-touch consulting services to advisors, according to its national sales head Greg Verfaillie. "A key component of Curian's value proposition is building and maintaining strategic partnerships with advisors and supporting them in all aspects of their business, from asset management to practice development," says Verfaillie. "Our sales team is focused on providing a wide array of value-added advisor solutions to improve practice efficiencies, and our future growth and success will be tied to a deeper penetration within our existing advisor relationships."

Curian, a subsidiary of Lansing, Mich.-based Jackson National Life Insurance, gets most of its business from independent brokers, but also works with RIAs, banks and credit-union service organizations. -FWR

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