fi360 Acquires IPS AdvisorPro

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- fi360, the premier organization for fiduciary education, investment analytics, support services and industry insights for financial professionals, today announced it has acquired IPS AdvisorPro^®, a cloud-based technology that helps financial advisors develop customized investment policy statements (IPS), which are used to document client investment goals and the subsequent procedures to achieve those goals.

The IPS is central to the fiduciary behavior of financial advisors. This acquisition reinforces fi360's core goal of supporting fiduciaries in successfully managing their roles and responsibilities using sophisticated tools that promote organizational effectiveness and efficiency. 

The IPS AdvisorPro^® flexible technology allows users to develop templates for eight unique client types, including individuals, trusts, ERISA plans, foundations and endowments, charitable trusts, and irrevocable life insurance trusts. The templates are fully customizable and can manage updates globally across all client IPS's. It also has compliance control features so that organizations can specify which language can or cannot be edited on a user-by-user basis.

"We feel strongly that the implementation and maintenance of a high-quality IPS is critical for effective management of the investment process. The IPS AdvisorPro^® technology is the most effective solution available for developing custom IPS templates and managing them across clients," said fi360 CEO Blaine Aikin. "Furthermore, this acquisition will enable us to work closely with founders Norm Boone and Linda Lubitz Boone, who bring years of industry experience to fi360."  

As part of the new relationship, Mr. Boone and Ms. Lubitz Boone will act as consultants to fi360 on an ongoing basis while continuing to lead their respective highly successful independent advisory firms. They are preeminent experts on investment policy statements and authors of the textbook Creating An Investment Policy Statement. They have both been regularly included in Worth Magazine's "Best Financial Advisors" list for the past 20 years and have each served on the national board of the FPA. In their consulting capacity, they will lend their unique expertise to help advance fi360's IPS and other fiduciary solutions while continuing to be advocates for better investment management processes. 

"Our purpose in creating IPS AdvisorPro^® was to simplify the process of writing IPS's, which we believe is the critical step in the investment process, boosting transparency and trust between the advisor and the client, and helping both toward a more successful experience. We are excited about what fi360 can bring to IPS AdvisorPro^®. Thanks to its much greater resources and its well-deserved reputation for advancing fiduciary behavior within the industry, fi360 can better support the continued development of our software and expand its reach to more advisors.  Our goals are their goals, and we look forward to working with them," said Linda Lubitz Boone.

Mr. Boone added, "Advisors and their compliance counterparts have increasingly recognized the need for comprehensive IPS documents that are up-to-date and compliant. The IPS AdvisorPro^® technology allows advisors to quickly and easily build a customized road map that will guide the advisor-client relationship and to make updates quickly and accurately, all with easy compliance oversight. As our work with fi360 expands, we expect to see leading fiduciary practices like the IPS increasingly become the norm for our profession."     

The acquisition continues an accelerated period of growth for fi360. It is the third acquisition this year, including Ann Schleck & Co. and Financial Service Standards. The company has also added six senior leadership positions during that time. These moves have significantly broadened fi360's capabilities as a single-source destination for advisors and organizations seeking to both improve their investment processes and grow their businesses.

About fi360
fi360 offers a comprehensive approach to investment fiduciary education, practice management and support that has established them as the go-to source for investment fiduciary insights. With substantiated Practices as the foundation, fi360 offers world-class fiduciary Training/Education, Tools and Resources that are essential for fiduciaries and those who provide services to fiduciaries to effectively and successfully manage their roles and responsibilities. fi360 assists those who rely on their fiduciary education programs, professional AIF^® and AIFA^® designations, Web-based analytical and reporting software and resources to achieve success. For more information about fi360, please visit www.fi360.com or Twitter: @fi360.

SOURCE fi360