Client Strategy

The Client Strategy team provides objective strategic advice to clients and, when appropriate, helps design outcome-oriented solutions. The process stems from the client's objectives, operating environment and challenges. Typically, this includes a broad portfolio or situational analysis. From there, we apply our collective knowledge and tap into the best available resources and strategies from across BlackRock to help clients achieve their investment goals.

BMACS can help institutional investors with strategic advice on a wide variety of topics, including:

• Asset allocation: Determining the appropriate portfolio asset allocation is not a static, one-time exercise. This is an ongoing challenge that needs to be continually refined as both objectives and market conditions change. For many investors it is also critical to make allocation decisions in the context of their liabilities.
• Manager structure: Selecting the best mix of managers is a primary responsibility for the investment staff. BMACS has developed a framework, using our proprietary PortfolioWorks™ software, to help institutions evaluate their portfolios of managers and identify areas of underperformance.
• Seminars and board education: Our strategists frequently present at industry conferences or individual client meetings on asset allocation, rebalancing, active versus passive decisions, benchmark selection, liability-driven investing, currency hedging, the role of alternatives, and other topics.

"Best Ideas" Portfolio Design

The BMACS Client Strategy team also designs custom portfolios to solve specific client problems. Where appropriate, we use novel investment structures that seek to achieve goals otherwise unattainable by traditional asset allocations.

Featured Literature

The New Policy Portfolio: Navigating through good and bad regimes, Investment Insights, September 2009

Volatility across the global markets has hurt most investors during the credit crisis. Now many are questioning one of the most well-established outcomes of modern portfolio theory—the policy portfolio.

For the plan sponsor confident of his or her skill at selecting managers, the question is not whether to use active management, but how.

Learn about a new way to introduce meaningful change into your plan.