NEXT Financial Teams with Envestnet, Pershing, AssetMark, ICON Advisers, and Others to Launch Revolutionary Unified Managed Account Platform.

HOUSTON -- NEXT Financial Group, in conjunction with Envestnet Asset Management, Pershing, AssetMark, ICON Advisers, Quantitative Advantage, Standard & Poor's and other managers have come together to create a first-of-it's kind unified managed account platform exclusively for the fee-based advisor representatives of NEXT Financial Group. The new Global Management Account, or GMA, will be the first fee-based UMA to combine third-party managed money programs (mutual fund wraps, managed ETF's and separate accounts) with Pershing fee-based and commission based brokerage accounts for daily performance reporting and consolidated, on-demand, client statements.

GMA will offer a long list of nearly 100 separate account managers and a mutual fund wrap via Envestnet Asset Management, portfolios and investments from AssetMark and ICON Advisers, stock baskets from Standard & Poor's, a managed ETF program from Quantitative Advantage, fixed-income portfolios from Gates Advisers and portfolios from two NEXT affiliated firms: Page One Financial and LVZ Advisers.

Gordon D'Angelo, Chairman and CEO of NEXT Financial Holdings, states, "The GMA is a prime example of how NEXT continues to be an innovator of new services in the broker/dealer industry. We are pleased to be pioneers of such a service that will benefit our representatives and their clients."

What makes GMA truly unique is that for the first time a Broker/Dealer will combine all of the third-party managed money programs from above with data reported nightly from Pershing brokerage accounts used by NEXT affiliated representatives. Both fee-based and commission-based Pershing brokerage accounts will be reported daily giving GMA the capability to truly unify all of these disparate programs in one centralized location.

Lori Hardwick, Senior Vice President at Envestnet, commented, "I was particularly impressed with the vision that NEXT brought to the table in response to their advisors' needs and requests. The result is a very unique platform offering that serves the needs of their advisors all in one unified, user-friendly portal."

Available only to representatives of NEXT, this revolutionary account has been over a year in the making. GMA places NEXT at the innovative forefront of fee-based investment platform technology. GMA will be promoted in the field by representatives of NEXT Financial Group, Envestnet Asset Management, AssetMark and ICON Advisers.