NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--UBS and BlackRock Solutions today announced a new partnership that will offer Aladdin Risk for Wealth Management (ARWM) to UBS Financial Advisors and Home Office professionals. UBS will become the first U.S. Wealth Manager to use Aladdin's industry leading risk management and portfolio construction tools.
Using ARWM, UBS Financial Advisors will be able to analyze portfolios with the same sophisticated risk and return analytics that BlackRock Solutions provides to some of the world’s most advanced institutional investors.
BlackRock Solutions has adapted components of its institutional Aladdin platform to suit the needs of the largest and most sophisticated Wealth Managers, which will be configured to take into account UBS’s unique requirements. The two firms are working closely to customize dashboards and tools that are optimized to understand the risks across portfolios within its private client business. The Aladdin rollout will start this summer initially to advisors managing discretionary portfolios and will later expand to a broader pool of Financial Advisors and client portfolios.
Aladdin is a robust multi-asset analytics engine that can analyze portfolios consisting of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, options and structured products using a factor-based approach.
“We’re incredibly excited to be extending the power of our Aladdin technology to help individual investors achieve better outcomes,” said Robert Goldstein, Chief Operating Officer of BlackRock. “Aladdin Risk for Wealth Management provides the opportunity to democratize the investment playing field by putting some of the world’s most advanced technology, normally the domain of large institutional investors, into the hands of leading-edge home offices and financial advisors. We are both proud and honored to have been selected by UBS for this journey.”
Brian Hull, Head of UBS WMA Client Advisory Group, stated: “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. 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.”
“Aladdin will be a huge enhancement to our Advisory business,” says Jason Chandler, Head of Investment Platforms and Solutions (IPS) at UBS Wealth Management Americas. “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.”
This partnership with BlackRock is part of a larger digital strategy for Wealth Management Americas to develop customized digital tools that will enhance and expand services to clients. UBS has announced strategic alliances and partnerships with leading fintech companies and launched an Advisor Technology Research & Innovation Lab working with SigFig, to develop digital solutions and next-generation technological capabilities for clients.
[Financial details of the partnership were not disclosed]
Notes to editors
About BlackRock Solutions
BlackRock is a global leader in investment management, risk management and advisory services for institutional and retail clients. At March 31, 2017, BlackRock’s AUM was $5.4 trillion. BlackRock helps clients around the world meet their goals and overcome challenges with a range of products that include separate accounts, mutual funds, iShares® exchange-traded funds, and other pooled investment vehicles.
BlackRock also offers risk management, advisory and enterprise investment system services to a broad base of institutional investors through its BlackRock Solutions® business. This includes the Aladdin® platform, which is offered through BlackRock Solutions and combines sophisticated risk analytics with comprehensive portfolio management, trading and operations tools on a single platform.
About UBS Wealth Management Americas
Wealth Management Americas is one of the leading wealth managers in the Americas in terms of financial advisor productivity and invested assets. Its business includes UBS’s domestic US and Canadian wealth management businesses, as well as international business booked in the US. It provides a fully integrated set of wealth management solutions designed to address the needs of ultra high net worth and high net worth clients.
About UBS
UBS provides financial advice and solutions to wealthy, institutional and corporate clients worldwide, as well as private clients in Switzerland. The operational structure of the Group is comprised of our Corporate Center and five business divisions: Wealth Management, Wealth Management Americas, Personal & Corporate Banking, Asset Management and the Investment Bank. UBS's strategy builds on the strengths of all of its businesses and focuses its efforts on areas in which it excels, while seeking to capitalize on the compelling growth prospects in the businesses and regions in which it operates, in order to generate attractive and sustainable returns for its shareholders. All of its businesses are capital-efficient and benefit from a strong competitive position in their targeted markets.
UBS is present in all major financial centers worldwide. It has offices in 54 countries, with about 34% of its employees working in the Americas, 35% in Switzerland, 18% in the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa and 13% in Asia Pacific. UBS Group AG employs approximately 60,000 people around the world. Its shares are listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
