Smartleaf Inc. announced Monday that U.S. Bancorp has chosen it to provide a unified overlay platform for its nonbrokerage wealth management investment relationships managed through the private client reserve and private client group.
Smartleaf, of Cambridge, Mass., has provided overlay solutions for U.S. Bank's nonbrokerage unified managed account program since 2007.
Smartleaf will now manage over 40,000 client portfolios for U.S. Bancorp, which is the fifth-largest U.S. banking company.
With the expanded use of the Smartleaf system, U.S. Bank will manage portfolios that combine individual equities, individual fixed income securities, mutual funds, ETFs, structured notes and other securities in a single portfolio that benefits from both proprietary and third-party research/models.
Jerry Michael, the president of Smartleaf, said in a interview Thursday that as a result of the new agreement U.S. Bank will be Smartleaf's largest customer. Smartleaf has $35 billion of assets under management, up from $15 billion a year earlier. Michael said U.S Bank will continue to offer proprietary investment products, but these products can be assimilated into a UMA.
"Overlay isn't just for open architecture anymore," he said. "We see overlay as being adopted as a common platform to manage wealth."
Michael said Smartleaf plans to continue to expand by adding more banks. He said the pipeline is "strong" and that he expects to add more relationships this year.
