Varium Investment Partners

Where Strategy Meets Partnership

Institutional-grade investment management for independent RIAs —
without the cost, complexity, or compromise.

In-Sourced CIO Model
Institutional strategy paired with full implementation — the only true OCIO + TAMP hybrid built for independent RIAs. We work as your investment committee, not a vendor handing you a model and walking away.
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Institutional Experience
PhDs, CFAs, CMTs, and MBAs with 150+ years of combined investment management, strategy, and portfolio construction experience — a senior team drawn from globally recognized financial institutions. The depth most RIAs could never staff in-house.
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Operating Leverage
Lower internal costs for you. Institutional-grade portfolios for every client. Advisor time returned to develop more and deeper client relationships and to focus on holistic financial planning — the highest-value work in your practice — and a more valuable firm at exit.
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Aligned Incentives
Partnership = Ownership

A small, hand-selected group of advisory firms can own and earn equity in Varium. As we grow the network together — better servicing your clients along the way — we also grow the value for every partner.

A partnership that is better for clients, better for advisors, and better for the Varium Partnership.

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We took a hard look at existing OCIO and TAMP services and asked: Why can't we have the best of both — and leave the worst parts out?

OCIO → Oh, CIO!

Our goal is simple: take OCIO and turn it into Oh, CIO! — transforming a complex, expensive, and uncoordinated outsourcing model into a seamless, fully-coordinated investment solution that makes your clients say "Oh, that's our CIO."

The Problem

The Current Models Are Outdated

Every existing solution forces a compromise. The three dominant models each have fundamental flaws — and none of them build value for your firm.

Advisor as Portfolio Manager
The worst option

Pulls the advisor away from clients. Investment quality suffers, the approach is unscalable, and it exposes the firm to unnecessary liability.

Internal CIO & Investment Team
Costly & transient

Expensive to build and difficult to retain. Quality is inconsistent, key-person risk is significant, and overhead is high relative to most RIA economics.

Outsourced to Third Parties
Best of the three options — still incomplete

A complete solution requires both strategy and implementation. But the two dominant outsourcing options each solve only half the problem:

OCIO
✓ Great strategy
✗ Poor implementation
TAMP
✓ Easy implementation
✗ No real strategy

Using both is uneconomical and unwieldy — and either way, the value flows to the provider, not your firm.

The Varium Solution

Institutional-quality investment strategy AND the technology to implement it — with no input required from you. One seamless, end-to-end investment solution at no or low cost to advisors. For clients, we deliver a customized institutional portfolio at a competitive price.

Data-Driven Investment Strategy
Institutional-grade asset allocation across multiple risk profiles, actively managed by our investment committee.
Seamless Implementation
Automated trading, rebalancing, and reporting — zero burden on your team.
You Stay in Control
Your brand, your client relationships, your business — we enhance it, not replace it.
We Never Compete for Your Clients
Our clients are advisors, not individuals. We don't accept retail clients, and if a partner ever leaves, we won't solicit or accept theirs. The poach penalty — the greater of 3 years of revenue or $1,000,000 per client — makes it economically impossible.
The Varium Advantage

Varium vs. Traditional Investment Models

Across every attribute that matters, Varium outperforms each of the three traditional investment models — advisor-managed portfolios, building an internal CIO and team, and outsourcing to unaffiliated third parties.

Attributes Variumas CIO Advisoras PM InternalCIO Third-PartyProvider
Access to Expert Investment Networks✓——✓
Professional Investment Management✓——✓
Advisor Focus — Not Split by PM Duties✓—✓✓
Unbiased, Conflict-Free Advice✓—✓—
Full Transparency✓—✓—
Tax Efficiency✓—✓—
Practice Efficiency✓——✓
Portfolio Efficiency✓—✓—
Value-Added Strategies✓———
Lower Practice Costs✓——✓
Lower Operational Complexity✓———
Significant Firm Value CreationYesNoNofor Others

None of the alternative models was designed for the benefit of advisors and their clients.Varium was.

How We Invest

Process Over Product

Track records belong to product companies. Varium isn't an asset manager selling proprietary funds — we're an investment process company. We orchestrate the best managers in every style box through an institutional-grade implementation layer, and the value we add on top is what no TAMP or off-the-shelf model can replicate.

01

Investment Strategy

Research — fundamental, technical, and quantitative — powered by data science and decades of experience across multiple economic and market cycles.

We deploy that intellectual capital, and the ability to seamlessly implement it, to build tactical asset allocation models that are systematic, disciplined, repeatable, and timely — the kind of rigor that's normally reserved for endowments and pension funds, available to your clients.

02

Rigorous Manager Due Diligence

We don't chase "hot" managers — we seek to uncover the process behind the performance. "How" a manager produced their results is far more important than "what" they accomplished.

Finding the managers who can deliver repeatable, sustainable, and consistent outperformance is a specialized skill set — one we have spent decades refining.

03

The Implementation Layer — Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Unlike a TAMP — where portfolios are managed in a vacuum with no coordination between managers — Varium negotiates with third-party managers for lower fees and model delivery, using our scale as leverage so we can coordinate the entire portfolio across all managers and disciplines, eliminating unintended security overweights, duplication of holdings, and wash sales.

Because we implement the models and execute the trading, rebalancing, and reporting ourselves, we can coordinate across the entire portfolio in ways no multi-manager structure can. The structural foundation is cross-style-box coordination, which allows for value-added strategies like active tax loss harvesting, option overlays, and portfolio protection — strategies that have the ability to deliver additional returns on top of the expected above-average returns from our third-party managers. We expect these strategies to add the following to the portfolio over time:

Value Add 01
+0–2%

Manager Selection

Identifying the best manager in each style box — our manager-selection process is designed to deliver additional return over each segment's benchmark.

Value Add 02
+1–3%

Direct Tax Management

Time sales to capture long-term capital gains treatment, harvest losses where they actually help, manage holding periods at the security level.

Value Add 03
+2–5%

Covered Call Overlay

Additional cash-on-cash return generated by writing calls on existing portfolio positions — making client capital work harder for the fees they're paying.

Value Add 04
+2–3%

Puts for Stock Entry

Selling cash-secured puts to enter desired positions at discounted effective cost basis — earning premium on cash that would otherwise sit idle.

Value Add 05
−1.5% to +4%

Portfolio Protection

Defensive overlay that behaves like insurance — a cost in calm markets, but when timed correctly, can substantially reduce losses in major downturns.

These are expected additional returns based on historical implementation and target outcomes — not guarantees. Actual results depend on many variables including client portfolio composition, market conditions, time horizon, strategy selection, and execution timing — and will vary. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

"Every dollar your client pays should be working as efficiently as it possibly can. That's what process delivers — and what product alone never could."

The Varium Difference

Everything Your Clients Need. Nothing You Don't.

We free advisors to focus on what they do best — client relationships and financial planning — while we handle investment management end-to-end.

01

Institutional Expertise

PhDs, CFAs, and CMTs with 150+ years of combined institutional investment strategy, portfolio management, and asset allocation implementation.

02

Complete Implementation

Strategy without execution is worthless. We deliver trade execution, rebalancing, and reporting through a state-of-the-art platform — requiring zero effort from you.

03

True Partnership

We believe your trust deserves equity. Our unique model gives qualifying advisors an ownership stake in Varium — so when you grow, you build real enterprise value.

How It Works

Three Stages. One Partnership.

Most firms hand you a portfolio model. Varium operates as your investment team — strategy, implementation, active management, and an ownership stake earned alongside us.

01

You Bring Your Clients.

Independent RIAs come to Varium with established practices, real client relationships, and a clear view of what their clients actually need.

We start by understanding your book: client segments, account constraints, tax situations, legacy positions, and the standards you hold your portfolios to. The output of this stage is a portfolio architecture built specifically for your practice — not a generic model dropped in from above.

02

We Build and Actively Manage Their Portfolios.

The institutional work most advisors don't have time to do — strategy, implementation, daily monitoring, tactical execution — delivered by a senior investment team operating as your own.

This is the In-Sourced CIO Model in practice. You stay focused on the work that grows your firm. We stay in the portfolio every day.

Varium Handles
The Investment Process
  • Asset allocation and portfolio construction
  • Manager and security selection
  • Ongoing due diligence and research
  • Trade execution and rebalancing
  • Daily monitoring and tactical positioning
  • Tax-aware implementation
  • Performance reporting and analytics
You Handle
The Client Relationship
  • Discovery and goals-based planning
  • Client communication and education
  • Reviews, presentations, and reporting
  • Business development and growth
  • Trust, judgment, and long-term advice
03

Together, We Share in the Growth.

Advisor partners earn equity in Varium. The value of that stake compounds as the firm grows — through both individual partnership and the collective scale of the network.

Your clients win through better portfolios and more attentive service. You win through reclaimed time, institutional-grade investment management, and ownership in the firm delivering it. Varium wins when both of those happen — and only then.

Equity Partnership

Your Trust Deserves Ownership

We ask you to trust us with your clients' investments. That's a real risk. As believers in the principle that risk deserves reward, we offer qualifying advisors genuine equity in Varium Investment Partners.

1

Partner With Varium

Choose your engagement depth — model delivery, implementation services, or full In-Sourced CIO. Varium takes on the institutional investment work that fits your firm.

2

Earn Equity

Qualifying advisor partners receive ownership stakes in Varium through our transparent partnership model.

3

Build Enterprise Value

As Varium grows, so does the value of your stake — a rare second revenue stream for your firm.

Own It.
Equity Partnership Program
Better outcomes for your clients. A stronger investment process for your firm. Equity ownership in the platform powering it all.
Explore the Partnership
Our Philosophy

Focus Creates Excellence

"Advisors do better when they focus on clients. We do better when we focus on investments. Together, we deliver better outcomes for everyone."
Advisors

Focus on client relationships, financial planning, and business growth.

Varium

Focus exclusively on investment management, research, and execution.

Clients

Receive the best of both: personalized planning + institutional investments.

The Confidence Test

The Varium Challenge

Send us your current investment offering. If we can't make material improvements, Varium donates $500 to the charity of your choice. If we can — which we believe we will — you receive a detailed portfolio review with concrete, actionable suggestions, at no cost.

Either way, you walk away ahead. Nothing to lose.

01
You submit your offering

Share the structure, models, vehicles, and process you currently use to manage client portfolios.

02
We review it

Our investment team analyzes your offering against institutional standards — strategy, implementation, tax, execution, and risk.

03
You get one of two outcomes

A free portfolio review with concrete improvement suggestions — or a $500 donation to your charity of choice if we can't help.

Submit a Sample Portfolio (PDF)