ORION OCIO CASE STUDY

Outsourcing for Growth

Plan4Wealth and Orion OCIO

The Situation

Plan4Wealth was at an inflection point. Working with a range of clients across the wealth spectrum, the firm was managing client portfolios in-house. That meant the work of manager research and due diligence, portfolio construction, executing trades, rebalancing, and ongoing management of all of those investment portfolios was done by the firm.

As the firm grew, they experienced limitations in the trade platform they were using. Embracing a diversified investment approach, they found that some portfolio allocations needed manual trading overrides in order to maintain the proper risk allocation. That process, multiplied across many clients, was not only burdensome and inefficient but also required that clients be prioritized to execute the trades. They knew they needed a better way.

In order to better serve their clients and improve their processes, Plan4Wealth began looking for technology solutions. One important factor for the firm was retaining the ability to use the products and solutions they offer to their clients.

After exploring different paths, the firm decided to leverage the services of an outsourcing partner to provide them with OCIO services. Outsourcing investment management capabilities to an experienced provider would not only help their business to be more efficient, it would enable them to spend more time growing their business and serving clients.

Overview

OFFICE LOCATION
Murray, Utah

WHO THEY ARE
Plan4Wealth employs a personalized, goals-based approach to financial planning and comprehensive investment management services for individuals, families, and businesses of all levels of wealth.

The Solution

Plan4Wealth decided to partner with Orion OCIO, which provides outsourced investment management services that enable firms like Plan4Wealth to fuel their growth in a number of ways.

By transferring capabilities like research and manager due diligence, investment strategy recommendations, building model portfolios, trading, portfolio management, rebalancing, reporting, and other functions to Orion OCIO, Plan4Wealth has been able to improve their business processes and reallocate their time to better serve their clients.

Darin Arnell, Wealth Manager at Plan4Wealth says that, of the solutions they explored, only Orion was able to meet all of their needs.

Once the decision was made, Orion worked with the Plan4Wealth team to ensure a smooth transition of client information and portfolios.

The technology at Orion just felt better than other places and no other provider was able to accommodate what we wanted. Once we found Orion, I didn’t think there would be any better options out there. It met all the needs we had and our costs were going down so we knew we found the perfect match.

— Darin Arnell, Wealth Manager
Plan4Wealth

The Advantages of Orion OCIO

Orion OCIO handles investment management responsibilities for Plan4Wealth, creating a host of benefits for both the firm and their clients.

Growth

In order to be in growth mode, Arnell says the firm needed someone else to be handling the time-intensive processes such as trading, manager due diligence, and portfolio allocations. Orion OCIO enables him to spend his time focused on prospecting, planning, and spending more time with existing clients. Leveraging Orion OCIO services also gives Plan4Wealth a scalable way to serve clients, creating capacity for growth.

Cost Savings

Partnering with Orion has helped create cost efficiencies in a number of ways. Arnell says the Orion costs are actually less than the ineffective tech platform they were using before. Plus, partnering with Orion meant that Plan4Wealth didn’t need to hire another team member to handle the manual trading and other investment responsibilities for them, saving them the cost of a new team member’s salary and benefits, along with the time involved in training and monitoring that employee.

Expertise

Arnell says having an experienced provider brings another level of investment expertise to their clients. “Our clients are getting the benefit of someone who is spending all day researching, looking at the portfolio, and making adjustments. They have their eyes on the markets and the data all the time, it’s not just one aspect of their job.”

Orion OCIO brings a deep bench of investment expertise and teams of dedicated specialists to firms like Plan4Wealth.

Expanded Capabilities

Orion offers a complete menu of services that can help firms enhance the value they deliver to their clients. Integrated risk management tools and risk tolerance questionnaire give advisors additional insights to help ensure portfolios are aligned with a client’s risk profile. Arnell says Plan4Wealth leverages other Orion OCIO tools like portfolio audit and the ability to incorporate bond ladders into client portfolios.

The firm also uses Orion’s client portal, which Arnell says is essential in giving both advisors and clients better context around their investments and helps clients to better understand their progress.

Better Client Experiences

With more time to focus on clients, Arnell and the rest of the Plan4Wealth team can focus on building and deepening relationships. “I get more time to be engaged with clients, meeting with them, planning, and addressing their needs.”

Arnell says they were fully transparent with clients even before they decided to partner with Orion and that clients have been fully receptive. Plan4Wealth held a client event where an Orion representative met with clients and helped ensure everyone was comfortable with the partnership.

All of our clients were completely on board with our OCIO partnership — there were no complaints and no hesitations.

— Darin Arnell, Wealth Manager Plan4Wealth

Overcoming an Objective

One objection some advisors having to leveraging an OCIO provider like Orion is not wanting to give up control of managing investments for clients. Arnell acknowledges that was something that he considered but decided that his time is better spent helping clients plan for and achieve their goals instead of executing trades or other tactical investment duties.

Orion OCIO

Orion OCIO helps firms like Plan4Wealth overcome some of the biggest obstacles to growth:

  • Rapid, unsustainable growth
  • Having to hire CIOs, CFAs or other in-house capabilities
  • Struggling with closing large accounts
  • Spending too much time on functions like trading and model management

Partnering with Orion OCIO can help firms create capacity for growth and deliver better experiences to their clients.

Orion OCIO offers
high growth capacity
for advisors.

Orion’s OCIO offering can help your firm grow and scale your business with a complete suite of investment and operational services, customizable to your firm’s needs.

Are You Ready to Grow?

OCIO services offered through TownSquare Capital, LLC, an Orion Company, a Registered Investment Advisor. TownSquare Capital, LLC, is an affiliated company of Orion Portfolio Solutions, LLC.

Orion has not compensated Darin Arnell from Plan4Wealth specifically or directly for this testimonial but they could from time to time receive gifts or entertainment as part of our normal business relationship or their firm may participate in marketing or administration support agreements with Orion. None of these occurrences are in place in order to compensate Darin Arnell for the supplied statements.

TownSquare Capital, LLC and Plan4Wealth are not affiliated in any way.

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