State Street's Charles River, iCapital team up for innovative UMA solution

With a growing share of retail investors looking to private market assets for diversification and returns, advisors are seeking tools to help them manage portfolios that blend public and private assets.

To help meet those requirements, a new strategic partnership between State Street’s Charles River Development Wealth Solution and iCapital is launching a new unified managed account solution.

The UMA solution addresses the portfolio and cash management challenges associated with offering illiquid (or semi-liquid) private instruments alongside public assets at a time when exposure to alternatives within retail investor portfolios is expected to proliferate.

Initial focus will be on semi-liquid vehicles like interval and evergreen structures with eventual expansion to include support for hedge funds, private capital, and more challenging instrument types.

The solution is open architecture, allowing expansion and development going forward, and Charles River’s advisor clients – at wirehouses, private banks and BDs – will be able to manage public and private asset classes for their HNW clients within one account to create a single portfolio and simplify overall asset management.

“State Street recognizes the potential to modernize the private asset value chain by removing outdated inefficacies that currently exist between product manufactures and distribution partners,” said John Plansky, executive vice president at State Street. “With the right technology and strategic partners, like our collaboration with the team at iCapital, we believe we can equip asset managers and wealth managers with the tools they need to navigate the complexities of private markets more efficiently, ultimately unlocking more value for their clients.”