Citi Markets & Banking today was appointed by Harding, Loevner Management, L.P. as service provider for the investment advisor’s retail separately managed accounts business. Noted within the industry for its flagship international ADR strategy, Harding Loevner’s SMA business comprises approximately 4,800 retail accounts and represents $1.2 billion in assets under management.
“To support the accelerating growth of our SMA business, we appointed Citi as our service provider because of its unique market experience, industry knowledge and technological capabilities,” says David Loevner, president, Harding, Loevner Management. “Particularly important in our decision to select Citi is its ability to deliver a single front-end trading application capable of supporting step-out trading to our choice of broker or electronic destinations, thereby helping us seek best execution of our trading orders. Also, Citi’s scalable trading application will allow Harding Loevner to accept invitations into sponsor channels that we previously had to decline due to trading efficiency or execution considerations.”
“We are pleased to be able to provide Harding Loevner with the technology and operations support it needs to enhance its competitive position in the SMA space,” says Andrew Clipper, product manager, Citi’s Investment Administration Services. “Harding Loevner can now focus on growing its business and serving clients while we deliver innovative trade order generation and trade routing support for U.S. equity and ADR trade execution. We will also assume all back-office administrative tasks such as account suitability and set-up, reconciliation and performance composite maintenance.”
The foundation of Citi’s SMA capabilities is Citi’s Asset Manager Solutions for Separately Managed Accounts, a tightly integrated end-to-end operations platform. Asset Manager Solutions automates key functions and adds features including: automated account opening and maintenance; document imaging and archival, auto fax and workflow management; portfolio manufacturing, modeling, maintenance, automated restriction and tax management; automated trade blocking and execution – including sponsor connectivity, step outs, trade-aways and direct market access; trade confirmation, allocations and settlement; automated reconciliation; trade order generation services for account opening, account maintenance, and model changes; electronic trade routing and best execution monitoring; performance reporting, attribution, composite maintenance and portfolio analytics; electronic support for voluntary corporate actions; client communications and fulfillment; embedded compliance reporting and audit control.