Barings taps DWS veteran to lead U.S. wealth push

Barings has named Brian Maute Head of U.S. Wealth, a newly created role charged with expanding the $502 billion alternative asset manager's reach across the intermediary channel.

The firm announced Monday that Maute will lead Barings' U.S. wealth distribution strategy across intermediary channels, including registered investment advisors, broker dealers, private banks, family offices and other wealth management platforms.

The global asset management subsidiary of MassMutual Barings, Barings has also been partly owned by MS&AD since MassMutual agreed to sell an 18% equity stake in the asset manager through Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance.

Maute will report to Ilena Coyle, Barings' Head of North America Insurance and Intermediary Distribution.

“As demand for alternative investments continues to grow across the wealth channel, Brian's leadership and deep understanding of the intermediary market will help accelerate our efforts to serve advisors and their clients,” Coyle said in a written statement.

Maute will focus on broadening advisor and investor access to Barings' global investment platform, including the firm's capabilities across credit, real assets, capital solutions, and emerging markets. He will also work with investment, product, distribution and marketing teams to build out educational resources for wealth managers incorporating alternatives into client portfolios.

With a professional record spanning more than two decades in the wealth distribution business, Maute spent more than 15 years at DWS Group, most recently as head of U.S. Wealth and CEO of DWS Distributors, before which he built the firm's U.S. Wealth Alternative Investments Division. He also had prior senior roles at Invesco and Van Kampen Investments at Morgan Stanley Investment Management.

Recent research from Cerulli Associates found that among asset managers offering alternatives, just over half rely on a generalist wholesaler backed by dedicated alternatives specialists, while roughly a quarter use generalists alone. That split, according to analysts at Cerulli, suggests there's still no established best practice among asset managers for pairing generalist and specialist coverage models in the space.

Cerulli also found that advisor education remains the single biggest obstacle to alternatives distribution among high-net-worth-focused firms, with three-quarters of asset managers naming it their top challenge. Advisors overseeing at least $500 million in assets currently put 4.4% of client portfolios into illiquid alternatives, a figure Cerulli projects will reach 5.7% by 2027.

Read more: Advisors need alts education … but what training do they want?

A separate Cerulli report published this month found that most asset managers have already restructured – or are actively rethinking – how their product teams are segmented, as firms wrestle with staffing levels and specialization needed to support increasingly complex, multi-asset-class platforms.

Maute's appointment also fits a broader wave of leadership churn atop wealth distribution units this year, as firms compete for advisor mindshare and space on wealth firms' increasingly crowded shelves for alternatives.

Read more: Private markets seen adding $2 trillion to advisor books within five years

Cohen & Steers promoted Brad Ispass to Head of U.S. Wealth in April, restructuring the unit into four segments spanning RIA, broker-dealer and global strategic account coverage. Ispass, who also previously served at DWS Group, joined the firm in June last year as head of Enterprise Wealth, a newly created position to lead the just-established Enterprise Wealth Group.

Late last week, Mercer announced it brought in Thomas Cannataro from BlackRock as its U.S. wealth management leader.