Roseville-based Helios Quantitative Research adds custom tools for financial advisers

Roseville-based Helios Quantitative Research LLC has added customizable investment tools to its asset management platform for financial advisers.

Since it launched in 2016, Helios has offered an asset management program to independent financial advisers and retirement planners.

“We’re basically an outsourced chief investment officer,” said CEO Chris Shuba.

The company’s new Helios Tools let advisers make custom portfolio changes to match their clients’ goals.

Many of the companies that offer similar portfolio management services are rigid, Shuba said, and have the attitude that "this is the product, take it or leave it."

Using its Helios Tools, advisers can customize investment products to better fit their clients, Shuba said. “It allows advisers to tilt the direction of the model."

Helios can put together portfolios of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, individual stocks, bonds and mixed portfolios.

The company also produces information on investing that can be used for internal or external communications by advisers. Helios offers access to some popular investing podcasts it produces as well.

The company has 15 full-time employees, and it has access to 30 contractors for developing products.

The clients of advisers don’t know that they are being supported by Helios.

“We’re a white-label product,” Shuba said.

Being a white-label product also means that Helios is far from a household name, Shuba said. The company has grown by word of mouth and by attending conferences, but it is only recently starting to reach out with direct marketing. The company gets paid on a flat fee per adviser using its product.

Helios’ quantitative investment algorithms are built around 18 primary characteristics of value, Shuba said.

The evaluation of the security or other investment isn’t determined by opinion, Shuba said. “It’s just math.”

Helios calculates valuations day to day, but the company doesn’t suggest its client advisers follow that cadence in investing.

“We think advisers should rebalance the portfolio monthly or quarterly, so it doesn’t create too many trades,” he said.

Helios supports about 1,000 advisers with about $40 billion in assets under management. The company has seen 30% growth of advisers using its product in recent years.

Helios is self-funded and privately held. Shuba declined to disclose its annual revenue.