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CASE STUDYBalentine drives growth with RedBlack
to enhance advisor and client experience
Customer profile
Balentine
Since 1987, wealth management firm Balentine has been a trusted advisor for families and institutions. The extensive knowledge acquired over 35 years is deeply ingrained. Balentine now advises on nearly $7 billion in assets under advisement (AUA), growing steadily after several years of hypergrowth.
But with growth comes more data and complexity and the need for more technology efficiency and sophistication delivered by a trusted partner that’s there for the long haul. Balentine sought the flexibility to increase volumes and advance capabilities around investment strategies, all while maintaining their steadfast dedication to an excellent client experience. Their search ended when they found RedBlack and our rebalancing and trading solution to unify and support their trading operations.
Challenge
Hampered growth
Disparate data, manual processes, and using multiple spreadsheets to trade billions of dollars created opportunities for errors and lacked efficiencies that made it difficult to scale at the rate their business is growing. Balentine kept models in a vendor tool that “provided zero functionality,” according to Benjamin Webb, Balentine’s Director of Manager Selection and Implementation, and outsourced direct indexing models to an investment manager, which increased costs to its end clients. At that point, the firm devised a three-year plan to combine its institutional and high-net-worth operations under one best-in-class rebalancing and trading platform that provided rich functionality and the ability to integrate with and operate alongside other platforms
in its tech stack.
The search for a long-term partner
Of utmost importance was choosing a profitable and stable partner for the long run—one that continuously enhances and grows the platform, eliminates the need for “workarounds” that still require too many Excel processes, and has the flexibility to meet the needs of its institutional and private clients.
“We’ve used many technologies over the years where only half our advisors and traders would use a system, then a couple of years later, we’re replacing it because it was no longer useful,” said Webb. “This time, we were dead set on choosing a partner to consistently improve our employees’ daily lives and grow with us.”
“We knew our firm was growing, so we wanted to find a rebalancer to meet current and future needs without forcing us to use a one-size-fits- all process or a restrictive all-in-one platform."
Benjamin Webb, Director of Manager Selection and Implementation
Balentine
Solution
A trusted partnership
After choosing RedBlack's rebalancer and trader, Balentine opted for a two-phased approach to onboard their entire book of business, starting with institutional clients in 2018 and then high-net-worth clients, which ultimately brought all its trading in-house by the end of 2021.
Integration, implementation and service
RedBlack integrates with Balentine’s other platforms, including Orion, Addepar, Adeline Advisor, Salesforce, and SEI, as well as its custodian, BNY Mellon | Pershing. In addition, Webb notes the implementation was completed on time and within budget.
“It took only six months to go from zero to 100% rebalancing and trading on RedBlack, which is something we’d rarely experienced with a vendor—if at all,” said Webb. He highlights the implementation team’s process-oriented approach to quickly solve any roadblocks they faced along the way and the high-caliber client service reps who continue to assist them today.
“RedBlack is always quick to respond to us, which is the opposite of many of our experiences in the past,” said Webb.
Flexible, safe trading
RedBlack provides Balentine with the flexibility to trade household accounts for family tax planning purposes, allowing advisors to efficiently manage cash transactions, concentrated securities, and separately managed accounts (SMAs), with “trading guardrails” in place to give advisors and traders greater confidence to take specific actions.
“Our job is to build a sandbox for our associates to come in and feel safe to trade,” said Webb. “RedBlack's use of equivalents, restrictions, tasks, what-if scenarios, and other features give them a safe environment to avoid errors on multiple levels.”
Impact
A key driver for growth
Over the years, RedBlack has provided Balentine with improved efficiencies and enhanced advisor and client experiences. The firm more than doubled in size – by both headcount and assets – since it began using the platform in 2018 and anticipates more growth in the future. “Any time we wanted to increase the level of service to our clients at scale, RedBlack has been able to meet our needs,” said Webb. “The software grows and flexes with us and is consistently enhanced with new features, which has helped to drive growth rather than hinder it.”
High advisor and client satisfaction
Balentine has not only achieved 100% advisor adoption of RedBlack as the firm’s official rebalancer, but its roll-out has also created software “champions” whose inspiration has helped to improve process efficiencies and teach other advisors to maximize the platform’s capabilities. One example is accessing SMA information and investing cash in RedBlack rather than multiple systems, which increases efficiencies.
In addition, Webb says RedBlack's householding capabilities allow Balentine’s advisors to view and manage clients across households to enhance cash efficiencies and manage assets as a portfolio model in terms of equivalents, restrictions, and taxes. “These features are helping us to increase satisfaction among our clients with significant wealth as they seek greater personalization and tax efficiencies,” said Webb.
Reduced errors and cost
Using RedBlack enabled Balentine to align all their trading in-house on one platform, which Webb says has reduced moments when errors might otherwise occur.
Not only does the platform enable the firm to trade portfolios en masse, but Webb also says he cannot overstate the platform’s value in creating a safe environment where advisors can trade seamlessly, which has also boosted confidence and morale
“I’ll never forget how proud I was when an advisor came to me and taught me the SMA capability on RedBlack,” said Webb. “That made me understand that they were deep into the software and finding enormous value in it.”
Benjamin Webb, Director of Manager Selection and Implementation
Balentine
Looking ahead
Planning for the future
As Balentine plans its next evolution of growth, it looks to possible inorganic growth and direct indexing trading strategies to reduce client costs. Webb knows that technology is essential to follow through on its plans.
“We’re excited about the possibilities and realize technology is key to improving client and employee experiences, and we’re confident RedBlack will be a part of that evolution as a true partner with whom we can grow,” said Webb.
See RedBlack in action
Learn how RedBlack's rebalancing and trading can integrate with your systems and support your growth.