A year after it formed a partnership with robo-advisor SigFig, UBS says it has struck a deal with BlackRock and expanded one with Solium Capital to rollout more technology to its nearly 7,000 advisors in the Americas.
Earlier this week, it announced that it is working with BlackRock to offer Aladdin Risk for Wealth Management tools to both its registered reps and home office employees. UBS says it is the first U.S. wealth manager to use Aladdin's risk management and portfolio construction tools, which let advisors and others analyze portfolios with risk and return analytics that BlackRock Solutions provides to institutional investors.
The Aladdin rollout will start in the summer to advisors who manage discretionary portfolios and then will later expand to more FAs and client portfolios. The tool serves as a multi-asset analytics engine that reviews portfolios with stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, options and structured products using a factor-based approach.
"Aladdin will be a huge enhancement to our advisory business," said Jason Chandler, head of Investment Platforms and Solutions for at UBS Wealth Management Americas, in a statement. "Our advisors will continue to provide differentiated, client-centric solutions, but now they will also be supported by the same sophisticated risk analytics used by world-leading institutional investors."
According to UBS, the partnership with BlackRock is part of its larger digital strategy, which includes the Advisor Technology Research & Innovation Lab it set up with SigFig.
"Aladdin will enable our home-office to better understand the risks in client's portfolios, and to enhance their guidance to advisors by deploying this sophisticated, multi-asset analytics engine," explained Brian Hull, head of UBS WMA Client Advisory Group. "UBS clients benefit most when our advisors combine their own experience and intimate understanding of client needs with our new technology and the advice of our home-office investment professionals.
