The advisors unit of SEI Investments, a financial technology firm in the swing of a new strategy to grow its business, surpassed $100 billion in assets.
The milestone is for assets overseen by financial advisors at independent brokerages and advisory firms who use SEI’s portal to manage that money and their practices. The portal, SEI Wealth Platform, lies at the core of SEI’s technology-intensive business of providing outsourced custody for client funds and assets, digital systems for running an advisory or asset management business and services such as fund accounting and regulatory compliance.
Erich Holland, a senior vice president and the head of distribution and engagement for independent advisor solutions at Oak, Pennsylvania-based SEI, said Thursday that crossing over the $100 billion threshold “will springboard us forward. We serve 8,000 independent advisors today. We believe we’ve barely scratched the surface.”
SEI oversaw around $1.3 trillion in assets as an advisor, manager or administrator as of last September. The advisor unit is its third-largest in terms of revenue.
Advisor in a box
SEI’s business consists of add-water-and-mix services that give advisors, brokers, private bankers, retirement plans, family offices, endowments and nonprofits ready-made investments and services for their clients, including technology for back-office tasks related to fund administration and front-office functions like communicating with clients.
Advisors like to outsource the nuts and bolts of investment management through what is known in industry jargon as a turnkey asset management program because doing so provides a plug-and-play “practice in a box” that frees up time to focus on interacting with clients, as opposed to managing investments. SEI’s competitors include Chicago-based Envestnet and AssetMark of Concord, California.
SEI also sells mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, with more than $26 billion in fund assets as of the end of last year.
‘We started the look’
“For the fourth quarter and all of 2021, the headline is that the Advisor unit is solidly in trend for the ongoing implementation of our new strategy,” Wayne Withrow, an executive vice president and the head of SEI’s independent advisor solutions group, said during a conference call Thursday on SEI’s fourth quarter earnings in 2021. He described the new strategy as focused on growing the SEI Wealth Platform portal for wealth managers and advisors; combining that technology with the company’s asset management services; and opening the portal to select companies to offer bespoke investments.
The sudden departure last month of CEO Alfred West’s presumed heir, Steve Meyer, an executive vice president and the head of global wealth management Services, jolted some investors. Asked if a search for a replacement had begun, West said, “We started the look.”
The company is transitioning its old wealth management platform to SEI Wealth Platform, a complicated technological upgrade that has resulted in backlogs in switching over some major clients, including HSBC and Wells Fargo.
Key upshots for advisors and asset managers:
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