Legg Mason announced that it has agreed to acquire an 82% majority equity interest in Financial Guard, an online Registered Investment Advisor and innovative technology-enabled wealth management and investment advice platform. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
The firm will operate as part of Legg Mason’s alternative distribution strategies business, which focuses on combining technology with the firm´s investment affiliates’ capabilities to better serve clients. The investment is part of its overall long-term strategy focused on creating choice for investors across investment capability, product and vehicle, and distribution.
Financial Guard’s aggregation technology provides advisors the ability to create a comprehensive picture of clients’ financial positions and recommend potential solutions to meet their clients’ investment objectives. It offers portfolio analysis and recommendations for a large universe of both passive and active funds. By making the technology available to advisors and their clients, both brands intend to help financial institutions grow their advisory business and be well-positioned to conform to the new Department of Labor fiduciary standard, set to be implemented in April 2017. Legg Mason will offer the Financial Guard platform to firms who are looking for technology solutions to assist them in meeting expanded compliance requirements in a holistic, cost efficient way.
More broadly, as demand continues to grow for technology-enabled advice, it becomes increasingly important for firms to offer to all of their clients technology solutions that are intuitive and easy to implement across a client’s entire portfolio. The technology offered by the firms can be implemented seamlessly at distribution partner firms to help them provide comprehensive advice.
Legg Mason plans to complement the Financial Guard platform’s existing capabilities with investment products from its nine independent investment managers, including multi-asset class solutions from QS Investors.