Morningstar Australasia Proprietary (Pty), an Australian subsidiary of Morningstar, a leading provider of independent investment research, announces that it has entered a definitive agreement to acquire Australian adviser software firm, AdviserLogic. The transaction is expected to close by the end of November, but is subject to customary closing conditions. The terms of this transaction remain undisclosed.

"Joining forces with Morningstar will accelerate the development of our financial planning solution," says Daniel Gara, CEO, AdviserLogic. He further adds, "Our focus on the advice workflow has earned us a loyal client base with leading customer satisfaction scores. As part of Morningstar, AdviserLogic clients will benefit from additional investment and the depth and breadth of Morningstar's capabilities."

With about $217 billion in assets under advisement and management, Morningstar has operations in 27 countries. The company offers an extensive line of products and services for individual investors, financial advisors, asset managers, retirement plan providers and sponsors, and institutional investors in the private capital markets. Also, over the past 10 years, AdviserLogic has built a loyal client base in the independent financial adviser market, with market-leading satisfaction scores from independent industry research provider Investment Trends. It serves advisers through its’ three core applications – AdviserLogic, which is a financial planning software platform; PayLogic, a revenue management software; and DataLogic, it’s client data aggregation engine.

We're excited to expand our ability to support advisers at a critical time for the industry by welcoming AdviserLogic into the Morningstar family

"Morningstar believes in the value of financial advice, and we share a common mission with advisers to empower investor success. We're excited to expand our ability to support advisers at a critical time for the industry by welcoming AdviserLogic into the Morningstar family," says Jamie Wickham, Managing Director of Morningstar Australasia. He adds, "Financial planning software is at the heart of the advice process. Combined with Morningstar's deep data, analytics and research, AdviserLogic's focus on user experience and advice workflow will enable us to elevate and differentiate our technology solutions for advisers—to support them in running an efficient and compliant practice; and deliver improved outcomes for their clients."

AdviserLogic will complement Morningstar's existing suite of adviser software solutions in Australia: Adviser Research Centre, a web-based platform delivering investment research, data and tools; and Morningstar Direct, designed to support APL monitoring and portfolio construction—from manager selection to asset allocation, portfolio optimisation and personalised reporting. The firm's 80+ employees across Australia and India will join Morningstar upon closing, including Daniel Gara, who will lead the product development and go-to-market efforts for AdviserLogic. Gundeep Sidhu, who co-founded the business with Gara in 2006 and led the business for a number of years, will pursue outside interests.