American Beacon Advisors and Mercer Investments are teaming up to introduce a new suite of model portfolio options for wealth firms and multi-family offices..
The new suite of Mercer & American Beacon Model Portfolios pairs Mercer's institutional research capabilities with American Beacon's distribution network and fund management experience, according to a joint announcement from the companies on Wednesday.
The partnership lands as the broader model portfolio landscape continues to grow considerably, with new industry data showing it nearly tripling in size over the past five years. Third-party model portfolios held more than $943 billion in assets as of March 31, a 46% increase from the prior year and a massive leap from $296 billion in June 2021, according to Morningstar's latest US Model Portfolio Landscape report.
The new offering consists of five risk-based model portfolios built around two central features. The first is a thematic equity sleeve offering exposure to areas such as artificial intelligence, energy transition, and demographic shifts. The second is Mercer's dynamic asset allocation framework, which the firm says blends top-down macroeconomic views with bottom-up analysis of asset class return drivers.
Two additional income-focused portfolios round out the suite: one oriented toward capital preservation and another toward higher-yield opportunities, according to the companies.
Greg Stumm, president and chief executive of American Beacon Partners, said "Advisors are balancing an increasingly demanding client environment with the need to deliver sophisticated investment solutions efficiently and consistently." He added that the Mercer collaboration allows the firm to offer advisors institutional-quality models.
Anne Marie Schultz, Mercer's U.S. investments commercial leader, said pairing Mercer's research with American Beacon's manager selection and distribution expertise was intended to help advisors support their clients' long-term objectives.
American Beacon Advisors managed $64.7 billion in assets as of March 31, across a lineup of mutual funds and exchange-traded funds run under a manager-of-managers approach.
The portfolios are designed for financial advisors, wealth managers, and multi-family offices, the companies said.
The entry of Mercer and American Beacon comes into a market still dominated by a handful of large players. BlackRock r– whose model portfolios include exposures to bitcoin and private market assets – remained the undisputed top provider, overseeing $308 billion, or roughly a third of total industry assets, as of March.
Flows into model portfolios have also accelerated. The category gathered roughly $42.6 billion in net inflows during 2025, a 42% jump over the prior year, with BlackRock alone accounting for more than half of that total, Morningstar found. Capital Group added nearly $12 billion in net flows over the same period.
Exchange-traded funds have overtaken mutual funds as the dominant vehicle inside model portfolios, a shift advisors have been tracking closely as they weigh cost and liquidity tradeoffs across their client accounts. ETFs made up 55.4% of average model portfolio composition as of March, up from 43% five years earlier.
Despite the decades-long decline in mutual fund fees over the years, model portfolios still held the edge in the cost competition, with an average asset-weighted fee of 0.35% at the end of 2025, compared with 0.61% for unbundled mutual funds. Custom models, in which advisors work with providers to tailor off-the-shelf strategies, grew to hold $258 billion in assets as of March, a 40% increase from the prior year, with BlackRock and Wilshire together controlling roughly two-thirds of that segment.
Private market exposure is emerging as the next frontier for model providers. Nearly 70% of firms surveyed by Morningstar said they already offer or plan to offer models with private-asset exposure within the next three years, with private credit and interval funds cited most often as the preferred asset class and vehicle, respectively.
Britt is named CFO of Wipfli, a $600 million accounting firm that audits two NFL franchises
The acquisition pairs Zephyr's 21,000-product separately managed account database with Y Charts' newly launched AI agent assistant for investment research.
The war for talent continues in the Sunshine State with as Truist and RayJay teams managing a collective $1 billion in client assets defect to other firms.
Americans now estimate they need $1.2 million to retire comfortably, but rising costs and debt are making that goal increasingly difficult to reach.
Crewe Advisors' Ryan Halliday and Accelerated Wealth Partners' Eric Amar suggest mega RIA's readiness to integrate — not just scale — will determine whether an IPO exit actually works.
Northern Trust’s Ken Lassner shows advisors how to convert volatility into after-tax portfolio gains
Dan Biagini of American Equity says the steady decline of pensions, longer lifespans and a reset in interest rates are rewriting how advisors build retirement income
