Links outside managers with Pershing's fee- and commission-based accounts. Independent broker-dealer NEXT Financial has launched a new unified managed account (UMA) that combines third-party managed money programs with Pershing's fee-based and commission-based brokerage accounts for daily performance reporting and consolidated, on-demand, client statements.

"[Our Global Management Account (GMA)] is a prime example of how NEXT continues to be an innovator of new services in the broker-dealer industry," says Gordon D'Angelo, chairman and CEO of Houston-based NEXT. "We are pleased to be pioneers of such a service that will benefit our representatives and their clients."

Moving parts

The GMA offers nearly 100 separately managed account managers and a mutual-fund wrap through Envestnet Asset Management, portfolios and investments from AssetMark (soon to be part of Genworth Financial) and ICON Advisers, stock baskets from Standard & Poor's, a managed exchange-traded fund program from Quantitative Advantage, fixed-income portfolios from Gates Advisers and contributions from NEXT affiliates Page One Financial and LVZ Advisers.

The novelty of the GMA is that it lets advisors combine so many asset management programs with data reported nightly from brokerage accounts held by Pershing, NEXT's clearing provider -- and the biggest brokerage clearing outsourcer in the game.

"If you're going in, you might as well go in with both feet," says Jim Manouse, NEXT's director of marketing, commenting on his firm's ambitious new UMA.

For now the GMA will be available only to NEXT's 800 or so brokers, but the firm is noodling thoughts of marketing it to "other firms we think might not be directly competitive to us," according to Manouse. "You'll notice we called it the 'Global Management Account' and not the 'NEXT Management Account' or something like that," he adds. -FWR

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