Praemium in talks over new SMA contracts
Praemium Wealth Management is in talks with several companies to offer a separately managed account (SMA) service, after its exclusive arrangement with BlackRock Investment Management expired over the weekend, Praemium’s managing director Arthur Naoumidis said at a meeting of members of Praemium’s Australian and United Kingdom (UK) board.
Praemium entered into a three-year agreement with BlackRock in 2005 to offer an SMA service to the market utilising Praemium’s proprietary technology.
Naoumidis said that while the talks did not mean the end of their relationship with BlackRock, they hoped to offer three or four more three-year licences to different operators in the market.
They were also looking at offering a complete online SMA for investors, Naoumidis said.
Praemium is also hoping to launch an Australian version of its UK SMA offering, called SMARTfund, by the end of the financial year.
Praemium recently signed up three financial planning companies in the UK — Foster Denovo, Informed Financial Planning, and Radcliffe and Newlands — to its SMARTfund offering.
The UK SMARTfunds are an SMA service developed and operated completely by Praemium. The agreement allows companies in the UK to use Praemium’s own range of SMARTfunds, and/or to launch their own branded version of the SMARTfund.
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