Park Avenue Securities
In 1999, Guardian launched Park Avenue Securities (PAS) with $2 billion in assets under management (AUM). Our aim? Provide those financial professionals with thriving wealth management businesses with broker-dealer capabilities within Guardian. Since then, our sights have evolved as we aspire to become a leader in wealth management and help you work with your clients to achieve financial well-being. Having our own broker-dealer broadens the range of solutions you can offer your clients. We’re able to meet core protection needs, as well as provide investment solutions to help your clients grow wealth, meet goals such as retirement, preserve capital, and save for college.
And after 25 years, how is PAS doing? In a word, outstanding! PAS continues to exceed expectations, reaching more than $58 billion in AUM and over $10 billion in sales in 2024. Park Avenue Securities continues to expand its product and service offerings.
Competitive platform
This year, PAS rolled out our Private Client Group, a competitive program aimed at helping financial professionals acquire, service, and retain high net worth clients. This program is a point of differentiation in the market and supports you in providing unique shared experiences to deepen your relationships with select clients.
PAS has also continued to bolster its competitive position through diverse offerings and strategic partnerships. By expanding our competitive offerings, we’re empowering you to better address client needs and create a more personalized experience and portfolio. PAS has created a one-stop shop by providing a strategically curated suite of offerings to address a variety of unique client investment goals — as well as the more sophisticated needs of high net worth investors. Here are some examples:
We forged new and expanded strategic partnerships to enhance offerings and provide clients with more diversity. We now offer access to the following: ActivePassive ETF portfolios from Envestnet that selectively use active management to minimize management fees; risk management offerings from SpiderRock Advisors for portfolio hedging, basis hedging, and exchange fund replication; and real estate alternative investment offerings via Inland Private Capital Corporation, along with alternative investment solutions from HPS Investments Partners and iCapital. Additionally, our Signature Portfolio and Portfolio Select programs now offer access to structured notes designed for advisory businesses.
We’ve enhanced our educational resources to help you and your clients navigate their options, featuring proprietary insights from PAS’ dedicated team. The Fund Strategist Portfolio (FSP) report tool provides clients with at-a-glance comparisons of more than 300 FSPs offered by 20+ investment managers to aid in decision-making. And our registered representatives can now find information about liquid alternatives in PAS’ Select List quarterly report.
Ease of doing business
PAS continues to see significant increases in new business and net inflows. We made many improvements in 2024 to streamline and improve the initial client experience, as we know it’s an important first step in building relationships. Here are some highlights:
Our new client onboarding platform provides a cleaner, more modern user experience and makes it easier to open multiple accounts when working with a family.
We’ve improved new account turnaround time by 60% for accounts submitted in good order by removing the requirement for the advisor to approve each account in workflow.
We’ve increased the rate at which accounts and transfers are submitted in good order — these improvements can be attributed to streamlining Regulation Best Interest questions, as well as active engagement from the field in a series of six dedicated transfer training sessions.
In addition to improving your day-to-day experiences with PAS, we’re working on putting more information at your fingertips to help you work with clients to meet their wealth management goals as well as manage your block of business.
You’ll have a more complete view of your clients’ assets now that we’re pulling in 401(k) data from Principal, as well as additional Guardian whole life policies, into Wealth Reporting.
The Guardian Online (GOL) book of business has an enhanced dashboard that allows you to break down your PAS business by team splits, on and off platform accounts, by AUM and Gross Dealer Concessions (GDC).
With the addition of west coast hours for customer service, we’re matching our expanded digital offerings with increased access to service and expertise. We’re proud of our award-winning service, which has been recognized with DALBAR’s Financial Intermediary Service Award.
Gaining industry accolades
PAS continues to gain industry recognition as a leader in the financial services industry, demonstrated by these impressive achievements:
Top Broker-Dealer in the 2024 IBD Elite Survey
Finalist for 2024 Broker-Dealer/Custodian of the Year by InvestmentNews
Markets Media’s 2024 Best in Wealth Management
Winner for Best in Wealth Management at the 2024 Markets Choice Awards
Finalist for 2024 Employer of Choice Award by InvestmentNews
We’re here to help
Our shared success reflects the strong partnership between the Home Office and our investment professionals. We’re always looking to advance the support we provide you — and our resources and programs, such as the Wealth Management Academy and Wealth Management Master’s Program, are focused on helping you identify trends in the industry and discovering ways to grow your business.
We look forward to partnering with you in the years to come. To learn more about how our teams can help you uncover opportunities to work with clients and grow your business, contact the PAS Business Development team, PAS_BDG@glic.com, led by Jack Fatica (Jack_Fatica@glic.com).