Highlighted in Charles Schwab's monthly activity report Friday was an $11.6 billion outflow from what a company news release termed a "planned resignation from an advisor services cash management relationship."
That's a big number, even for Schwab, which reported total client assets by February's end had reached a record $2.53 trillion, up 10 percent from this time last year.
Which firm, or firms took that much business elsewhere?
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Chelsea de St. Paer, the company's vice president of investor relations, was not a liberty to name names.
She did say it was one independent advisory client that runs an "institutional cash management business," meaning it manages the cash positions for large institutional investors.
"The relationship wasn't mutually beneficial for us or the client," said de St. Paer. "We were expecting them to go elsewhere."
Despite the loss, Schwab for the month claimed $6.8 billion in net new assets.
To put that into context, its best month in the past year, July, saw $15.9 billion in net new assets – and that was on a month that actually recorded losses amid poor market performance. Schwab's worst month in the past year for net new assets came last April, when the firm attracted less than $500 million in new cash.
Also for context: the $11.6 billion that walked is more than the monthly asset gains for all but two months in the past year.
Schwab was able to partly offset the outflow with $6.1 billion in new assets resulting from the consolidation of its recordkeeping platforms, first announced in 2013.
"When we consolidated our platforms, we actually announced our expectations to lose some business. But we ended up retaining some we expected to go away," said de St. Paer.
That fortuitous outcome also helps explain the 2 percent bump in corporate retirement plan participants from the previous month. That number now stands at about 1.47 million participants, an 11 percent year-over-year increase.
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Nick Thornton
Nick Thornton is a financial writer covering retirement and health care issues for BenefitsPRO and ALM Media. He greatly enjoys learning from the vast minds in the legal, academic, advisory and money management communities when covering the retirement space. He's also written on international marketing trends, financial institution risk management, defense and energy issues, the restaurant industry in New York City, surfing, cigars, rum, travel, and fishing. When not writing, he's pushing into some land or water.
