Mercer Advisors, a registered investment advisor with $15 billion in client assets, has partnered with tax analysis and optimization software provider LifeYield to provide its asset location technology to the firm’s advisors.
Following the agreement, the RIA’s 40 branch offices will have access to LifeYield’s Taxficient Score, an indicator of tax efficiency. LifeYield allows advisors to measure the dollars-and-cents impact on taxes across accounts, including assets not actively managed by a particular advisor.
According to LifeYield, a study by Ernst & Young noted that after-tax returns and income were boosted by as much as 33 percent when investors used Taxficient Score data. The software was a finalist in the 2018 WealthManagement.com Industry Awards.
“The next frontier for financial services is where investment solutions, different account registrations, advisor tools and platforms are coordinated, optimized and quantified to improve investor outcomes,” said Steve Zuschin, LifeYield’s executive vice president for direct to advisor sales.
LifeYield is already partnered with wealth management companies like Morgan Stanley and SunTrust, but is working to diversify its agreements across additional wealth management firms, asset managers and even annuity companies, the firm said. In October, the company partnered with asset management firm Russell Investments.
Mercer is a fast-growing RIA that has been on an acquisition tear. The firm marked the close of 2018 by making a number of new acquisitions, including four firms in November of last year alone. In December, Mercer Advisors announced it was acquiring Bell Wealth Management, an Austin, Texas-based firm that managed about $200 million in total. The firm has acquired two additional RIAs in 2019 thus far, including Confluence Financial Advisors in March. At the time, one Mercer executive told WealthManagement.com that the firm expected to complete at least as many deals in 2019 as it had in the prior year.
Donald Calcagni, Mercer Advisors’ chief investment officer, told WealthManagement.com that the firm would benefit from Taxficient Score as it has always been a tax-oriented advisory firm, with a number of last year’s acquisitions being CPA firms. LifeYield’s asset location analytics would be advantageous for smaller firms integrated into the Mercer fold.
“We can leverage those for the broader organization, and that benefits the acquisitions,” Calcagni said. “They don’t have to buy the tool, but they can benefit from it.”