Atlanta-based family-wealth manager taps Placemark for overlay role. Independent investment advisory Homrich & Berg has launched a multi-manager separate-account strategy for its high-net-worth clients, who now have about $1.2 billion invested with the firm.

"We've grown our firm by focusing on innovative investment strategies and big-picture planning, and our new diversified separate account program permits us to create portfolios utilizing our preferred investment managers while also delivering significant value by customizing individual portfolios based on each client's tax and risk characteristics," says Homrich & Berg's COO Mark Rogozinski.

Overlay

Atlanta-based Homrich & Berg will position the multi-manager portfolios as the primary vehicle for domestic equities and then buttress that with private equity, hedge funds and other proprietary offerings. Placemark Investments will provide the back office and act as overlay-manager for the program, executing all portfolio trades and "implementing all features based on client requirements," according to a Placemark press release.

Overlay management is the process of aligning trades, managing cash flow and attempting to enhance the overall tax efficiency of investment portfolios that incorporate different styles and sometimes different asset classes.

Other names in the overlay game include Parametric Portfolio Associates, IXIS Asset Management Advisors' Managed PortfolioAdvisors and, with a rep-as-manager version, Smartleaf . InvestEdge and Northfield Information Services recently rolled out an automated overlay technology for wealth firms with mostly proprietary investment products to keep track of.

Several of the wirehouses require participating managers to provide passive overlay for small bundles of unaffiliated managers or operate in-house overlay programs - one of them is pretty widely believed to have brought Placemark in as its overlay provider, but the brokerage in question won't confirm that.

The minimum account size for Homrich & Berg's new multi-managers program will be $250,000, though the firm expects an average account size closer to the $500,000 mark.

Dallas and Wellesley, Mass,-based Placemark's clients include RBC Dain Rauscher, McDonald Financial Group, and Piper Jaffray. -FWR

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