Investment Solutions
A Curated Suite of Investment Solutions
a-Squared Investment Partners provides access to a carefully selected range of investment vehicles — from structured investments and SMAs to ETFs and mutual funds — designed to meet the evolving needs of private wealth advisors and their clients.
Structured Investments
Structured investments offer defined risk-return profiles tied to underlying market indices or assets. These instruments provide principal protection options, enhanced yield potential, and customized exposure — making them a powerful tool for advisors seeking tailored outcomes within a client's portfolio.
SMAs
Separately managed accounts offer direct ownership of individual securities within a professionally managed strategy. SMAs provide tax efficiency, transparency, and customization — allowing advisors to align portfolio holdings with each client's specific tax situation, values, and investment objectives.
ETFs
Exchange-traded funds deliver broad or targeted market exposure with the efficiency of intraday liquidity and typically lower cost structures. Our ETF lineup spans core equity and fixed income strategies as well as thematic and factor-based approaches suited for modern portfolio construction.
Mutual Funds
Mutual funds remain a cornerstone of diversified portfolio management. We offer access to actively managed and index-based strategies across asset classes, providing advisors with flexible building blocks for client portfolios of all sizes and risk tolerances.
Partner Firm — Structured Investments
Barnabas Capital
Structured Investment Specialists
Barnabas Capital partners with insurance companies and banks to offer a robust suite of protected investment and insurance product solutions from highly-rated financial institutions.
Visit Barnabas CapitalProtected Growth
May offer partial or full protection from market loss at maturity. Often have terms that range from 2–5 years. Designed for investors that have liquidity sources from other assets.
Income
Provide the potential to earn coupons based on the performance of an underlying asset. May offer higher coupons than fixed income if the investor assumes a certain level of market risk. Often have terms that range from 18 months – 3 years.
Custom Exposure
Bespoke payoff profiles tied to single indices, baskets, or multi-asset underlyings to meet specific portfolio objectives.
Leadership Team
Joe Powell
President, Partner
Joe Lee
Head of Sales & Distribution, Partner
Dan Magnetta
Head of Investment Strategy
Josh Lewis
Head of Structured Investment
Blake Dobson
Senior Vice President of Marketing
Partner Firm — Separately Managed Accounts
NextFolio
Leading the Evolution to Ensemble Active Investing
NextFolio's Ensemble Active is a first-of-its-kind investment approach that integrates high-conviction positions from multiple active managers, leveraging real-time insights and unique machine learning technology coupled with expert manager selection to create adaptive actively managed portfolios.
Visit NextFolioVeteran Leadership
Decades of investment and leadership expertise guiding a disciplined, research-driven approach to active portfolio management.
Skilled Manager Selection
The ability to harness multiple managers' insights while minimizing bias — combining high-conviction perspectives through proprietary machine learning technology.
Turnkey SMA Solutions
US active equity strategies for every Morningstar style box, delivered as fully managed, advisor-ready separately managed accounts.
Leadership Team
Paul Ahern
Managing Partner
Jeff Seiple
Managing Partner
Stephen Beinhacker, CFA
Chief Investment Officer
William Wilson
Chief Operating Officer
Partner Firm — ETFs
Tamarisk Capital
Making Professional Risk Management Accessible
Tamarisk's mission is to make professional risk management accessible. We believe every investor deserves the same structural advantages once reserved for institutions: clarity, discipline, and adaptability — delivered through a simple, low-cost, liquid ETF.
Visit Tamarisk CapitalWhy We Built Tamarisk
Many investors are told — directly or indirectly — that managing equity exposure requires a tradeoff: stay fully invested and accept the full impact of market drawdowns, or reduce risk and miss the recovery. Over time, that tradeoff has become accepted. We don't believe it should be.
Why Index Price Levels Don't Tell the Full Story
Broad equity indexes can, at times, mask differences beneath the surface. Market capitalization-weighted indexes, such as the S&P 500 Index, are influenced heavily by their largest constituents. As a result, index-level performance may reflect the strength of a relatively small group of stocks, even when a larger portion of the market is experiencing weaker trends. This dynamic can create periods where headline index performance appears resilient while underlying participation across individual securities declines. Evaluating additional measures of market activity may help provide context around overall market conditions. For this reason, the Defender Risk Adaptive 500 ETF (SPDF) incorporates market breadth indicators as part of its investment process.
SPDF vs. Buffer ETFs
Buffer ETFs are designed to provide a predefined range of outcomes over a set period — typically limiting downside exposure within a specified range while capping potential upside. To create those defined outcomes, structural constraints are required: capped upside participation, fixed outcome periods, and sensitivity to entry point and timing. Markets do not generally move in fixed windows. They evolve continuously, and periods of volatility, recovery, and trend development rarely align neatly with predefined outcome periods or reset schedules. Rather than defining outcomes in advance, exposure-based strategies — like SPDF — adapt as conditions change, maintaining exposure when conditions appear supportive and adjusting when indicators signal increased risk. The difference is not necessarily about which approach is better, but how each is built to manage risk: one defines outcomes within a fixed set of constraints; one adjusts exposure as conditions evolve.
Leadership Team
Ryan Gorman, CFA, CMT, BFA
Portfolio Manager
Vincent Randazzo, CMT
Portfolio Manager
Trusted Relationships. Thoughtful Distribution.™
The private wealth ecosystem is evolving. a-Squared Investment Partners exists to lead that evolution — for advisors, wholesalers, and investment solution providers who believe there is a better way.