Why Advent and Black Diamond are merging and how advisors look at the deal

Written by Brooke Southall, RIABiz Friday, 13 May 2011

The deal announced yesterday between Advent and Black Diamond was born back in February, when Advent President Peter Hess left a voicemail for Reed Colley, founder of Black Diamond Performance Reporting at his Jacksonville, Fla. offices.

Black Diamond had something that Hess very much wanted: a way forward in the RIA market. The long-time giant of the RIA software world had a next-generation product, Advent Portfolio Exchange, but it had been built foremost with high-end asset managers, not wealth managers, in mind. The technology was geared toward them.

“We needed a purpose-built (software product for RIAs). Black Diamond had emerged as the pre-eminent player in that space and so we said: Let’s see if we can partner with them.” Read More..