Liberty Media Corp., owner of MLB franchise the Atlanta Braves, created a series of tracking stocks for the team last week, allowing shares to be traded on Wall Street. Unfortunately, according to the New York Post, the shares tumbled along with the team's performance on the field. The team's Series A shares, trading under ticker BATRA, were priced on April 15 at $36 a share. They dropped to $19.95 at the session's close that day. At 11 a.m. Tuesday, the shares had dropped even further to $18.32. The share price dropped the market capitalization of the Braves, MLB's only publicly traded team, to $870 million, 25 percent below the $1.175 billion value listed by Forbes. In addition to the Braves, of which Liberty Media owns 20 percent, the company also owns stakes in Sirius XM radio, Live Nation, Time Inc., Time Warner and Viacom.
Wilshire Creates Wealth Management Platform
Wilshire Funds Management has announced the creation of the Wilshire Wealth Management Platform. The platform will be powered by VestmarkONE, which manages over 1.5 million accounts, representing more than $500 billion in AUM. The platform will provide RIAs and family offices with turnkey access to Wilshire's investment strategies and research. Wilshire Funds Management is a subsidiary of Wilshire Associates, an independent investment consulting firm based in Santa Monica, Calif., servicing clients in more than 20 countries with assets totaling $8 trillion. Wilshire Funds Management advises banks, broker/dealers, asset managers, insurance companies and retirement plan providers on more than $148 billion in AUM. “There is a great need for a research solution that bridges the increasingly narrow gap between the demands of institutional and ultra-high-net-worth investors,” said Josh Emanuel, Chief Investment Officer of Wilshire Funds Management. “This platform distils Wilshire’s four decades of institutional experience into an intuitive and flexible solution.”
Saving for a wedding can be a major milestone in a client’s financial plan, but many American investors are fed up with how expensive weddings are getting. It cost an average of $30,000 to get hitched in 2015, which 86 percent of people surveyed in the latest COUNTRY Financial Security Index said is too much. And the costs begin long before a couple walks the aisle: 55 percent of men said they would consider buying a used ring to save money, and three-fourths of women said they would accept one. The cost of getting married is also changing traditional attitudes on who should spend, with half of Americans now saying the couple should split the bill instead of the bride’s family covering it. The good news for advisors is that most clients should be able to stick to their financial plan, as 77 percent of those surveyed said a dream wedding wasn’t a good excuse to take on additional debt.
