As competition intensifies among Turnkey Asset Management Programs (TAMPs), GeoWealth stands out by combining customization capabilities with strategic partnerships to serve both mass affluent and high-net-worth segments.
In an interview with The Wealth Advisor’s Scott Martin, Brendan Falls, EVP, Chief Growth Officer at GeoWealth, discusses the company’s market strategy, technological innovations, and how GeoWealth is adapting to market demands while maintaining its core focus on advisor enablement.
The Growth Strategy
While GeoWealth continues to benefit from existing client firms bringing new accounts and advisors to the platform, Falls emphasizes that the company’s primary growth metric focuses on acquiring net new firms across diversified channels. The traditional core of GeoWealth’s business has been serving firms that want to leverage integrated technology and service to run their proprietary models, particularly within a unified managed account (UMA) framework.
“Traditionally, we very much served firms that really wanted the leveraged service and integrated technology of GeoWealth to run their own proprietary models, and that is still a big channel for us,” Falls explains. “We still have strong demand when you take that into account with the UMA ability of GeoWealth, which is very difficult for firms to, at scale, implement their own strategies within a UMA framework.”
This approach has proven particularly valuable for firms seeking to maintain their investment identity while accessing sophisticated trading and implementation capabilities.
Strategic Partnerships Transform Distribution
The company has recently secured significant partnerships with industry giants BlackRock and Goldman Sachs, marking a major expansion in its distribution capabilities. These partnerships center on custom model solutions, with both firms utilizing GeoWealth’s UMA technology and service to distribute and promote their custom model solutions to the market.
Falls notes the increasing market traction of custom solutions over the past two years, describing it as a perfect hybrid between advisors’ desire for investment management autonomy and the benefits of outsourcing. “It’s almost like it’s catered solely to what RAs inherently are looking for,” he says, adding that “if you ask any of these institutions, they will tell you it’s one of the fastest-growing model segments in all of wealth.”
Flexibility in Implementation
GeoWealth’s technology infrastructure supports customization at multiple levels, from individual representative to home office, with robust compliance oversight and permissioning capabilities. Falls emphasizes the platform’s versatility: “Every partnership is going to be a little bit nuanced in their go-to market, but our technology infrastructure is supportive of both,” he says. “But then there’s also always that middle ground of compliance, oversight, permissioning and the number of years we’ve been in the business. We’ve seen it all.”
This flexibility allows firms to maintain its unique investment approaches while benefiting from institutional-grade implementation and oversight.
Upmarket Evolution
GeoWealth is experiencing an important inflection point in its market positioning. While historically serving firms with mass affluent clientele through exchange-traded fund (ETF) and mutual fund models, the company has successfully expanded upmarket to serve firms with higher-net-worth households. The evolution has been driven by the introduction of new solutions within scalable model portfolios.
One significant development is the integration of alternatives into model portfolios. “There’s been a lot of press around alternatives as not just a single client solution but deploying alternatives as an asset class across a whole book of model portfolios,” Falls notes. “I’m proud to say that we are in the market now with semi-liquid alternative components inside of a UMA.”
The platform has also expanded to include direct indexing and fixed income separately managed accounts (SMAs), with more innovations in development. Falls suggests that this evolution is fundamentally changing the nature of model portfolios: “What we think about as a scalable model is going to look very, very different and much, much more customizable than it’s ever been.”
Client Acquisition Patterns
Interestingly, GeoWealth is not just attracting clients from traditional TAMP competitors or broker-dealer setups. Falls points out a significant trend of firms transitioning from self-administered technology solutions to GeoWealth’s platform. “We’re getting firms that are much more using technology to insource and run all of their own models, trade their own models using the technology that they’re running themselves from a billing and reporting standpoint,” he explains. The primary driver for the transition is the complexity of implementing UMAs or multi-sleeve models at scale independently.
This shift suggests a growing recognition among independent firms that while building an in-house technology stack can work initially, partnering with a specialized platform provider becomes increasingly valuable as firms scale and seek to offer more sophisticated investment solutions.
Industry Outlook
Falls sees positive industry-wide trends for TAMPs, noting increased openness among firms to change their approach to business operations. While acknowledging the diversity of perspectives on asset management and models, he strongly advocates for outsourcing operational aspects: “If you’re telling me that advisors’ best use of time is in the minutia of trading model portfolios and being hands-on and billing, reporting and operational aspects, I firmly believe that is not the case.”
He sees this as beneficial not just for GeoWealth but for all TAMP providers: “That is something that is much better outsourced for both just your client bandwidth, for your team’s client bandwidth, but also from your growth and your economic growth. So, I just think those trends are amplifying. They’re good for GeoWealth, but they’re good for the entire industry as well.”
The Path Forward
GeoWealth’s evolution reflects broader industry trends toward greater customization and scalability in investment management. By combining robust technology infrastructure with strategic partnerships and innovative solutions such as alternatives in UMAs, the company is positioning itself to serve advisors across multiple market segments. The platform’s ability to support both mass affluent and high-net-worth strategies while maintaining operational efficiency suggests that TAMPs will continue to play an increasingly important role in the wealth management industry’s future.
For financial advisors considering platform options, GeoWealth’s approach offers a compelling combination of customization capabilities, operational efficiency, and scalability. As the industry continues to evolve, the ability to serve diverse client needs while maintaining operational efficiency will likely become increasingly important for advisory firms of all sizes.
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