Fortigent to expand Apogee's investment platform and reporting capabilities. Atlanta-based Apogee Family
Office has retained Fortigent, a Rockville, Md.-based
wealth-management platform provider to help it expand and deploy its roster of
third-party asset managers and to improve its performance reporting.

"Our relationship with Fortigent will help us build upon and build out the
core offerings that are most important to our clients, including world-class
money management, sophisticated asset allocation, tax-managed strategies like
their [unified managed account] program, and incorporating alternatives wisely
into our ultra-high-net-worth portfolios," says Taylor Fairman, Apogee's
head of investments. "In addition, the firm's truly reconciled
performance-reporting capabilities will help us to streamline our administrative
processes."

Buildout

A unified managed account, or UMA, is a single-account investment product
typically featuring a blend of manager-model separately managed accounts, mutual
funds and ETFs. Fortigent's UMA program features overlay management by
tax-managed investment-product provider Parametric. Overlay management is the
process of aligning trading activity, managing cash flow and enhancing the
overall tax efficiency of multiple-sleeve investment portfolios.

Apogee's family-office chief Jeff Davis says Fortigent differs from
other third-party investment platform providers because it offers "significant
customization opportunities, coupled with their open architecture approach and
experience in the high net worth niche."

In fact Fortigent started out as the in-house third-party platform of
Lydian Wealth Management (now City National
Bank-owned Convergent Wealth
Advisors). It is a subsidiary of Palm
Beach, Fla.-based Lydian.

"We are excited that Apogee chose us after their extensive search for a
robust partner," says Fortigent business developer John Yackel. "We look
forward to helping them meet the sophisticated needs of their existing clients,
while we strive to play an instrumental part in their growth as they attract new
families."

Renovating its investment and reporting offering is part of a general
buildout at three-year-old Apogee. In addition to Fairman, who joined the firm
from Philadephia-based Hirtle Callaghan this past spring, the firm has brought
in a number of senior staffers this year including Andy Lohn to manage
its legal practice, former consultant Claude Beaudry as head of its
business-advisory practice and Matt Edwards to lead its insurance-service
team.

Apogee has about $80 million in assets under management. The firm expects to
see a sharp increase in assets under management and supervision in coming years
as its clients -- many of them successful entrepreneurs -- liquidate business
assets in reparation for retirement and second careers.

Fortigent has 48 institutional clients and approximately $22 billion in
assets on its platform. -FWR

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