Fundsters, there's a new way for financial advisors to quickly research top-performing mutual funds.

Earlier this year Laurie Marchel launched RoboWholesaler, an open-access website (no login required) that gathers together mutual fund fact sheets for FAs. And fundsters can advertise to the FAs who use the site.

The site, St. Louis-based Marchel tells ThinkAdvisor's Hilary Potkewitz, "strips away all the marketing clutter" to make "the broker's life easier." FAs visiting the site pick a category, then a subcategory, then a return period (1, 3, 5, or 10 years). The site then lists the 10 top-performing funds in that category in the chosen time-period, and choosing a fund displays its fact sheet.

"This is all publicly available information," Marchel tells ThinkAdvisor. "People shouldn't have to walk over hot coals to get to it."

Marchel, a former asset management distribution executive who worked at Invesco and Russell, promises not to use popup or banner ads on the site and wants to keep it simple. Yet fundsters can still get involved. If you want your logo and branding next to your fund, you pay. And if you want embedded links to regional wholesalers so that FAs can reach out to your team, you pay.

Yet Marchel insists that fund placement on the website will remain purely performance-based. (The rankings are adjusted on a quarterly basis.) So, no paying for placement here. 

Edited by: Neil Anderson, Managing Editor


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