Putnam's fund evaluation tool 'a bold statement'

Putnam Investments has launched an online tool that enables its financial adviser clients to evaluate more than 10,000 mutual funds using up to 60 different criteria. Next month, advisers also will be able to compare up to 1,100 exchange-traded funds using the Fund-Visualizer tool. The firm launched the tool because it recognizes that advisers don't work just with one or two mutual fund companies, said Brian Kelley, director of sales and marketing. Also, the old belief in buy-and-hold is no longer prevalent in today's world, he said. “Advisers feel they need to be more tactical,” he said. “They realize they need to be looking at a three- to five-year holding time with tweaks.” With the FundVisualizer, advisers can log on to Putnam's adviser site and compare mutual funds according to an array of criteria, including performance, risk, fund assets and Morningstar Inc. rating. Putnam's adviser clients also can access the tool on their iPads. It may seem counterintuitive for a fund company to enable clients to compare other firms' products with one another, but Putnam believes that it will serve to differentiate itself. “It's a bold statement,” Mr. Kelley said. “To the best of our knowledge, there is no one with a tool this transparent.” Also, by offering advisers this kind of real-time information, Putnam hopes to expedite the sales process. “The follow-up process using this tool is much faster,” he said. Rather than having a wholesaler make a presentation in an adviser's office and then have a lot of back and forth with questions, advisers can now run the data themselves in real time, he said. E-mail Jessica Toonkel at jtoonkel@investmentnews.com.