CAIS, a New York-based financial products platform for registered investment advisers and broker-dealers, has expanded its pool of structured products providers available in its new open-architecture structured notes platform for advisers.
CAIS has reached distribution agreements with JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, RBC and BNP Paribas to create a diversified, multi-issuer lineup of structured solutions. Before the addition of the new providers, CAIS's structured solutions offerings consisted only of products from Goldman Sachs.
“As our product menu expands, we continue to advance our mission to deliver advisers a true competitive advantage in a single easy-to-use platform,” said Matthew Brown, CAIS's co-founder and chief executive. “With the addition of the open architecture structured notes solution, we are improving pricing and execution efficiency as well as overall product education for advisers.”
The CAIS approach to structured notes mirrors the open architecture model of its funds menu. As an independent platform, CAIS gives clients access to a selection of banks and products providing credit diversification and institutional pricing. According to the firm, having multiple product providers on the same platform helps wealth managers find suitable products at a competitive price.
“By joining the CAIS platform, we are confident that we will be providing efficient access to our offerings to a broad and growing network of advisers who understand structured products and the benefits to deploying them in their clients’ portfolios,” said Larry Wilson, head of structured investments distributor marketing at JPMorgan.
According to Brown, growing adviser demand for structured products compelled the company to expand its offerings in this space. “CAIS felt the need to broaden its lineup of structured offerings and have more companies competing against each other to fill an advisor’s order, resulting in better execution and pricing to the end user,” he said.
Competitive pricing
Brown also said that structured products are just a part of CAIS’s overall platform which offers advisers access to a range of alternative products including hedge funds, private-equity funds, ’40 Act mutual funds, equity and debt syndicate, and precious metals.
According to Brown, the expansion of the provider’s pool will also allow advisers to get competitive pricing on bespoke structured notes. “CAIS adds value because we take the adviser’s request for the intended note and can have all of the different banks bid on filling that order, and the best price wins,” he said. “By having a more open-architecture platform, we’re allowing advisors to see different credits of the banks and the pricing they come up with to fill the orders.”
CAIS doesn’t charge advisors to use its platform; rather, product providers pay it from the fees generated by the products that advisers use.
Brown added that CAIS’s expanded structured products menu includes more educational materials to help advisers make informed decisions regarding these investment vehicles. These include educational materials provided by the banks that outline the different parameters of the securities themselves in order to bring more transparency to their structures.
“CAIS is a demand-based platform, and we’re seeing a lot of RIAs and broker-dealers effectively utilise structured notes — many plain-vanilla ways to get access to indices and the like,” Brown said. “But overall, we want to create a better forum for advisers to be able to access these products. We’re trying to lower the cost to advisers and increase transparency and education for advisers.”
Related stories:
CAIS appoints head of capital markets
GS teams up with CAIS to push RIA access to structured products in US