The Bond Buyer: Asset Managers, Financial Advisors Working Harder to Customize Products

Clients want more from their portfolios. More personalization, more tax efficiency, more flexibility. And the firms managing their money are working harder than ever to deliver. In a recent article from The Bond Buyer, reporter Jessica Lerner examines how asset managers and financial advisors are rethinking their approach to customization across the fixed income landscape.

The piece brings together perspectives from leaders at Goldman Sachs, Franklin Templeton, AllianceBernstein, Lord Abbett, Invesco, Bloomberg Intelligence, and IMTC. Together, they paint a picture of a market that looks very different from even a decade ago, with a wider range of investment vehicles, growing demand for separately managed accounts, and rising expectations from end investors who want tailored outcomes rather than one size fits all solutions.

IMTC CEO Russell Feldman highlights a key part of the story: technology’s role in making all of this possible at scale. Systems that can optimize thousands of individual portfolios, each with unique tax situations and objectives, simply didn’t exist ten to fifteen years ago. Today, automation and portfolio optimization tools in fixed income are beginning to close the gap with what’s long been available in equities.

The full article digs deeper into cross-asset strategies, the growth of active ETFs in munis, and what the next wave of customization looks like for the industry.

Read the full article by Jessica Lerner on The Bond Buyer [subscription required].

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Q&A

Why is portfolio customization becoming so important in fixed income?

Investors increasingly expect their portfolios to reflect their individual circumstances, not just a broad market view. Tax situations vary widely from client to client, and so do risk tolerances, liquidity needs, and geographic considerations. A retiree in a high tax state has fundamentally different needs than a younger investor in a state with no income tax. As the tools and technology to manage this complexity have matured, the bar for what clients consider “good enough” has risen with them.

What role does technology play in scaling SMA customization?

Managing a handful of customized portfolios is one thing. Managing hundreds or thousands, each with distinct constraints and objectives, is an entirely different challenge. Technology platforms built for fixed income portfolio management allow firms to automate much of the optimization, rebalancing, and tax management that would otherwise require enormous manual effort. Without that infrastructure, delivering true customization at scale simply isn’t practical.

How does fixed income technology compare to what’s available in equities?

Historically, equities had a significant head start. The tools for managing equity portfolios at scale were more developed, in part because equities are more standardized instruments. Fixed income markets are far more complex, with millions of unique securities, varying maturities, credit qualities, and tax treatments. That complexity is exactly why managing fixed income on platforms originally designed for equities tends to fall short. Teams end up relying on a patchwork of workarounds, manual processes, and spreadsheet downloads just to fill the gaps. It’s not sustainable, especially as customization demands grow. Over the past several years, purpose built fixed income platforms, such as IMTC, have emerged to address these challenges natively, giving managers capabilities that were once only realistic on the equity side without the friction of forcing a square peg into a round hole.

What should asset managers look for in a portfolio management platform?

The best platforms do more than just execute trades. They bring together portfolio optimization, compliance monitoring, tax loss harvesting, reporting, and real time analytics in a single workflow. Connectivity matters just as much. A platform that integrates with order management systems, custodians, market data providers, and other tools in the investment ecosystem helps eliminate the kind of manual, error prone data entry that slows teams down and introduces risk. Flexibility is another key consideration. A platform that works well for one type of strategy but can’t accommodate multi-asset or cross-sector approaches will quickly become a bottleneck as client demands evolve.

How is the growth of SMAs changing the competitive landscape?

With SMA assets growing rapidly, firms that can deliver personalized outcomes efficiently have a real advantage. It’s not just about investment performance anymore. Advisors and end investors are evaluating managers on how well they can tailor portfolios, how transparently they report, and how seamlessly they integrate with broader wealth management workflows. The firms investing in technology and operational infrastructure to support this are positioning themselves for the next phase of growth.

This paper is intended for information and discussion purposes only. The information contained in this publication is derived from data obtained from sources believed by IMTC to be reliable and is given in good faith, but no guarantees are made by IMTC with regard to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of the information presented. Nothing within this paper should be relied upon as investment advice, and nothing within shall confer rights or remedies upon, you or any of your employees, creditors, holders of securities or other equity holders or any other person. Any opinions expressed reflect the current judgment of the authors of this paper and do not necessarily represent the opinion of IMTC. IMTC expressly disclaims all representations and warranties, express, implied, statutory or otherwise, whatsoever, including, but not limited to: (i) warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, suitability, usage, title, or noninfringement; (ii) that the contents of this white paper are free from error; and (iii) that such contents will not infringe third-party rights. The information contained within this paper is the intellectual property of IMTC and any further dissemination of this paper should attribute rights to IMTC and include this disclaimer.