Tocqueville Debuts Opportunity Zone Strategies With ESG Focus
Tocqueville Asset Management, a wealth management firm with $8.6 billion in client assets, has partnered with CapZone Impact Investments to launch the first multisector opportunity zone fund strategies incorporating strong environmental, social and governance guidelines.
Tocqueville and CapZone, both headquartered in New York City, will collaborate with institutions and high-net-worth individuals and their financial advisors, including those with pre-existing opportunity zone funds looking for diversification.
Enacted in December 2017 as a nationwide investment program in low-income communities throughout the country, the opportunity zone program allows taxpayers to reduce, defer or even exclude capital gains taxes by investing them in long-term development fund projects.
Raymond James Launches Succession Planning Platform For Advisors
Raymond James Financial Inc., headquartered in St. Petersburg, Fla., has launched a multi-purpose succession planning platform for its financial advisors.
Practice Exchange, a cloud-based tool powered by FindBob, is a secure one-stop shop that allows advisors to grow their practices, protect their assets and prepare for their eventual retirements. Users can safely and securely review agreements, perform due diligence and negotiate with future partners.
Advisors can use the platform to review and update catastrophe plan and succession plan information and to identify potential successors to assume the reins of leadership as necessary.
The platform also makes M&A deals easier than ever to transact, thanks to a proprietary algorithm that connects sellers with prospective buyers according to their shared business interests and compatibility. Advisors wanting to buy or sell a practice also have the support of educational resources and valuation and financing tools, as well as the Raymond James consulting team.
RIA In A Box Debuts Virtual Advisor Desktop And Cybersecurity Dashboard
RIA in a Box, a Cleveland-based financial technology company, has launched a new cloud-based cybersecurity solution for registered investment advisors.
The Virtual Desktop and MyRIACompliance Dashboard complement your firm’s cybersecurity essentials by automating the due diligence review of third-party technology vendors and creating documentation, while also offering better protection against cyberattacks.
Firms can control access to their data by managing devices, files and applications all in one place, as well as protect against email phishing attacks.
CFP Board Center Releases Career Guide
The CFP Board’s Center for Financial Planning has released its Guide to Careers in Financial Planning for students, career changers and financial services professionals.
By using the new guide as a resource, readers can find out how to enter the field, determine whether they want to work for a small firm or a large one, learn about the personal and professional rewards of becoming a financial advisor and prepare themselves for the all-important first job interview of their new profession.
The guide can be downloaded free of charge on the CFP Board’s website, which also provides job seekers with available career opportunities and internships in financial planning.
AssetMark Launches Pooled Employer Plan
AssetMark, a financial technology company headquartered in Concord, Calif., has launched a pooled-employer plan called AssetMark PEP.
Pooled-employer plans, or PEPs, are 401(k) plans that allow owners of small to medium-sized businesses to pool their retirement assets with those of other employers, and to outsource the fiduciary and operational duties associated with plan sponsorship.
Under the SECURE Act of 2019, a PEP allows smaller employers with less than $25 million in plan assets to benefit from economies of scale and potentially lower costs while gaining access to diversified investments and enhanced fiduciary support usually available only to large corporate plans.
Quadratic Capital Introduces Deflation ETF
Quadratic Capital Management, a Greenwich, Conn.-based asset management firm, has launched the Quadratic Deflation ETF (BNDD).
Managed by Quadratic founder and CIO Nancy Davis, the BNDD seeks to profit from economic trends such as lower growth, deflation, lower or negative long-term interest rates and/or a reduction in the spread between shorter- and longer-term interest rates by investing in U.S. Treasurys and options.
The portfolio primarily consists of long-dated U.S. Treasury bonds, enhanced by a portfolio of options. The strategy is based on the tendency of bond prices to rise when interest rates fall during times of deflation, and also the tendency of options to increase in value with the compression of the spread between shorter- and longer-term interest rates.
The options within the BNDD portfolio are traded on the over-the-counter interest rate markets, which are typically not available to most investors.