Wall Street wire houses — or bulge-bracket firms — continued to top the list of sponsors of separately managed accounts in the second quarter, according to research by the Money Management Institute and Dover Financial Research.
Their report, whose findings were called preliminary, listed the top five sponsors of separately managed accounts, in order, as Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo & Co., UBS AG and Charles Schwab Corp.
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney managed $173.6 billion of the $499.3 billion in SMA advisory assets at June 30. B of A Merrill managed $146.3 billion; Wells Fargo, $59.6 billion; UBS, $52.3 billion, and Charles Schwab, $44.4 billion.
SMAs are typically marketed by distributors — otherwise known as sponsors — to high-net-worth investors as an alternative to mutual funds. Securities in these portfolios are bought on behalf of the individual investor.
