Family Office
iPro adds Black Diamond to CPA-based WM platform
Back-office provider adds performance-reporting engine to its
core offering. iPro One has selected Black Diamond Performance
Reporting to support its CPA360 back-office offering to CPA-owned
RIAs. Black Diamond's platform can be added to CPA360 to let
advisors outsource data aggregation and performance reporting and
view client data in flexible interface.
Integrating CPA360 with Black Diamond's performance-reporting
engine "allows CPA firms to leverage critical data, meet their
fiduciary responsibilities and assist their clients, and grow the
wealth-management function of the firm," according to Black
Diamond's CEO Reed Colley.
Acquisitions
Expanding on this theme, iPro One's CEO Anthony Wood says that
adding Black Diamond's performance reporting with CPA360 gives
CPAs the opportunity to see information needed for tax analysis
along side wealth-management performance reporting. "We are
making it much easier for CPA firms to conduct performance
analysis, benchmarking comparisons, client reviews and other
forms of financial analysis to continue to position them as the
most trusted advisor to high-net-worth clients," he adds.
Three-year-old iPro One provides third-party investment products
and related consulting services to CPA-owned wealth managers.
Though it has a roster of outsource-only clients, it began taking
minority-ownership stakes in its institutional clients this year.
To date it has bought into HbK Sorce Financial, the
wealth-management subsidiary of Alliance, Ohio-based CPA Hill,
Barth & King, and Tegra Financial Partners, an affiliate of
Atlanta-based accountancy Habif, Arogeti & Wynne.
New York-based iPro One -- which got a capital infusion from
Houston-based investment bank Sanders Morris Harris in 2007 --
plans to make about five acquisitions a year through the next
five years.
"CPA firms are seeing major growth in the wealth management
practice areas of their firms," says Wood.
iPro One recently added Advisor Software Inc.'s client-proposal
system to CPA360. Jacksonville, Fla.-based Black Diamond reported
on more than $22 billion in assets under management for 82
institutional clients as of May 2008. -FWR
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