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Case Studies
Industry:
Private Wealth Management
Challenge: A national diversified financial services firm approached Patpatia & Associates to extend beyond its traditional transactional business model and penetrate the high net worth wealth management marketplace.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Designed a client-focused market strategy optimized for the firm’s multiple affluent & small business customer segments
- Integrated comprehensive wealth advisory offerings, including tailored individual security portfolios and private banking services, into a planning based approach
- Established a new subsidiary to deliver extended advisory capabilities within a fiduciary framework
- Deployed sophisticated technologies for the delivery of a “mass customized” investment process, limiting discretion for efficient & controlled delivery across a diverse sales force
- Implemented a new channel recruitment program to complement existing sales forces with a relationship-based advisor network
The Results
Multiple audiences have leveraged the new wealth and asset management platform, enhancing cross-selling efforts and allowing the firm’s advisors to penetrate new client markets. Our client is now able to position itself as a comprehensive financial solution, limiting the ability for third party institutions to insert themselves into its client relationships.
Industry:
Institutional Asset Management
Challenge: Assist a multi-national insurer to overcome capacity constraints in its traditional investment processes and profitably invest its new asset inflows, diversifying its account portfolio while improving its portfolio risk exposure.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Reoriented investment strategy for total return incorporating investment style out-performance, product liability requirements, portfolio loss dynamics, and costs
- Deployed alternative asset classes (e.g. private placements, commercial mortgages, hedge funds, private equity, REITs) for improved investment yield and a diversified risk profile
- Retained external investment managers to supplement internal resources and mitigate volume and cost constraints
- Deconstructed portfolio risk exposures, identifying approaches to remedy an excessive reliance on derivatives, ALM duration mismatch, and inappropriate product structures
The Results
The insurer successfully penetrated alternative asset classes within higher yielding investment structures and outsourced specialized mandates to complement proprietary deal flow. Concurrently, by adjusting product guarantees and yield curve strategy on traditional investments, the firm reduced its aggregate investment risk exposure, minimizing reliance upon derivative hedging strategies to maintain asset-liability management objectives.
Industry:
Insurance Asset Management
Challenge: A leading life insurance company engaged Patpatia & Associates to enhance its general account investment management process for additional yield and diversification opportunities.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Benchmarking of current investment organization based on competitive insights from insurance peers
- Determination of immediate investment opportunities for uninvested cash
- Formalization of a disciplined investment approach for rapid deployment of future capital in-flows
- Identification of alternative yield-enhancing asset classes and selection of appropriate third party money managers
- Development of a formal, liability-driven product pricing and investment strategy discipline
- Implementation of a formal enterprise risk management program & risk-adjusted performance analysis process
The Results
We executed a strategic business plan to enhance our client’s general account investment performance. We assisted them in creating a formal approach , which significantly decreased existing inefficiencies in their investment program. We also helped deploy assets into several new disciplines utilizing a combination of internal resources and best of breed third party managers.
Industry:
Retail Investment Products
Challenge: The largest U.S. network of independent brokers engaged Patpatia & Associates to develop a new fee-based advisory services platform for an investment planning approach encompassing a broad set of proprietary and third party investment products.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Designed an affiliated product set of mutual funds and annuities, tailored to a fee-only business model
- Deployed new workstation technologies automating client analytics, product recommendations, and proposals suiting clients’ financial planning directives and asset allocation requirements
- Tailored wealth solutions to an open architecture environment, maximizing asset aggregation potential by incorporating product neutral capabilities without sacrificing ease of use
- Reengineered pricing and compensation practices to enhance competitive positioning
- Launched a new fee-only producer affiliation model, facilitating the retention of advisors migrating to an RIA business positioning and the recruitment of CPAs & other trusted advisors
The Results
Our client introduced a platform as sophisticated and comprehensive as those delivered by its wirehouse competitors, differentiating itself from it independent peers and reinforcing its value proposition in the marketplace. The broker/ dealer network utilized this new positioning to improve advisor retention and accelerate recruiting while gathering a greater share of customers’ wallets. The firm also achieved higher bottom-line profitability over previous advisor offerings.
Industry:
Alternative Investment Market Entry
Challenge: A Wall Street investment bank and brokerage firm sought to expand its asset business into higher profitability segments, to diversify its revenue streams and increase the company’s competitiveness in the marketplace.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Identified high-potential opportunities for market extension among traditional and alternative investments resonating with its existing institutional & private client relationships
- Implemented de novo hedge fund, real estate, and managed futures asset management capabilities, and extended its private equity business
- Structured unregistered & registered investment vehicles to maximize distribution reach, leveraging proprietary sales forces & third party channels
- Supplemented existing portfolio management skill sets through lift outs, alliances, & acquisitions, as well as organic growth strategies
- Oversaw the launch & rollout process to ensure effective sales management and market adoption
The Results
Our client has been able to grow their asset management business in line with competitive demands, rapidly and efficiently. With a low capital investment, they have been able to broaden their reach in the alternative investment marketplace, bypassing the long lead time inherent in most money management launches.
Industry:
Private Banking Services
Challenge: A diversified, national bank engaged Patpatia & Associates to build a unified wealth management platform across multiple channels including private banking, licensed bankers, retail brokerage, and direct distribution.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Client segmentation and needs analysis for customer-focused solutions with tailored product set, pricing, and service models
- Creation of client-centric investment services offerings with integrated design of cross-selling opportunities & incentive strategies
- Development of actionable investment workflow to institutionalize “mass-customized” advice & model-based management
- Definition of functional and technical needs based upon business objectives and vision for platform integration
- Integration of fundamental business architecture with legacy systems, current 3rd party toolsets, and prospective vendor development
- Reeingineering of business process flows, identifying inefficiencies in day-to-day advisor, middle, & back-office activities for automation and/ or revision
The Results
We delivered our client a strategic business plan and assisted in implementation of an integrated wealth management platform and advisory solution. This resulted in a unified source for wealth management offerings across all proprietary channels with focused solutions for each client segment.
Industry:
Group Insurance
Challenge: A national life and health insurance company employed Patpatia & Associates to develop and execute upon an effective growth strategy. The growth strategy needed to balance the requirements of its multiple business lines and enhance its positioning in core markets.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Undertook an in-depth analysis of individual business units, assessing profitability, market share, and competitive strengths, benchmarked against the competitive environment
- Expanded the retail agency and group insurance operations, while harvesting profits from non-care businesses
- Deployed a common investment platform across the insurance, brokerage, and asset management units of the insurer
- Grew affiliated distribution, including agency sales & group reps, through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions
- Reeingineered current annuity product set for extension into new retirement markets and third party channels
- Leveraged its group market presence to rollout a new employee services worksite marketing program for voluntary benefits and complementary financial products (e.g. mortgages, retail investments)
The Results
Our client acquired a complementary insurance operation, which greatly improved their product and distribution capabilities. Concurrently, it extended into new retirement markets, establishing a new profit center for the insurer. The company has also successfully evolved its investment services platform to support its mass affluent, high net worth, and small business owner clientele.
Industry:
Insurance Marketing By Non-Insurers
Challenge:A national banking institution engaged Patpatia & Associates to integrate insurance and annuity offerings into its current product offerings. This was part of a greater strategic effort to deliver comprehensive asset management services to clients and facilitate asset gathering techniques.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Design of variable life and annuity products which utilize underlying proprietary investment offerings
- Strategic deployment of insurance planning benefits marketing into greater wealth management and advisory services
- Integration of required insurance sales and marketing elements into platforms and workflows allowing banking professionals the ability to cross sell products
- Long-term development of internal underwriting resources to support sophisticated product offerings
The Results
Our client was able to successfully launch and sell the insurance and annuity offerings in their current proprietary channels. Our tangible, ontime approach allowed our client to complete implementation within six months, rapidly deploying the new offerings to the marketplace.
Industry:
Front- and Back-Office Platform Assembly
Challenge: A leading wirehouse employed Patpatia & Associates to replace their front-end broker workstation and integrate it with new middle- and back-office solutions for a seamless advisory process.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Defined required functionality through thorough competitive analysis, complemented by comprehensive interviews with brokers, field management, and operations staff
- Benchmarked the producer desktop and supporting infrastructure of all major wirehouses
- Integrated legacy systems, along with vendor technologies and new development, into a single desktop solution
- Redesigned workflows to enhance the usability of solutions to increase adoption rates and faciliated change management to new advisory processes
- Designed segmented platform capabilities to support multiple classes of advisors from a lone platform
- Concurrently initiated a new recruiting strategy, founded upon superior advisory technology, targeting both traditional full service brokers and alternative channels (e.g. RIAs, CPAs, private portfolio managers)
The Results
Through disciplined execution management, the new platform was delivered without interrupting existing business activities, while streamlining workflows in fundamental business functions and dramatically increasing available wealth advisory capabilities. The solution was delivered on time and under budget, achieving over 80% adoption within 9 months of launch.
Industry:
Due Diligence & Acquisition Support
Challenge:An international private equity manager employed Patpatia & Associates to identify high opportunity investment sectors and companies within the global real estate information and technology sector.
Patpatia & Associates’ Activities
- Segmentation and opportunity assessment of real estate market data and analytics firms by product and service type based on market growth and trends
- Quantification of demand based on the dynamic investor and customer needs for a comprehensive data and analytics solution
- Identification of under-performing analytics firms with potential for rapid turn-around through guidance of management and other initiatives
- Determination of market value based on competitive differentiations, market conditions, and management prowess
- Evaluation of potential companies for synergies with current portfolio companies for strategic mergers and/ or spin-offs
The Results
Our client was able to assess the overall market demand for real estate data and analytics related to the current service purveyors. The private equity manager successfully acquired an analytics purveyor and combined its relative strengths with one of its current portfolio companies. The resulting merger provided a comprehensive data and analytics offering from one company, not existing in the marketplace.