Barings, the $502 billion global asset manager owned by MassMutual, has appointed Brian Maute to the newly created role of Head of U.S. Wealth. Maute, who spent over 15 years at DWS Group, will oversee the firm's distribution strategy across registered investment advisors, broker-dealers, private banks, family offices, and other wealth platforms. The announcement, made Monday, underscores Barings' push to deepen its presence in the intermediary channel as demand for alternative investments grows.
Maute will report to Ilena Coyle, Barings' Head of North America Insurance and Intermediary Distribution. In a statement, Coyle highlighted Maute's leadership and understanding of the intermediary market as key to accelerating the firm's efforts to serve advisors and their clients. Maute's mandate includes broadening access to Barings' global investment platform, which spans credit, real assets, capital solutions, and emerging markets.
His responsibilities also involve collaborating with investment, product, distribution, and marketing teams to develop educational resources for wealth managers incorporating alternatives into client portfolios. This focus on education aligns with recent research from Cerulli Associates, which found that advisor education remains the single biggest obstacle to alternatives distribution among high-net-worth-focused firms. Three-quarters of asset managers cited it as their top challenge.
Maute brings more than two decades of experience in wealth distribution. At DWS, he most recently served as head of U.S. Wealth and CEO of DWS Distributors, and previously built the firm's U.S. Wealth Alternative Investments Division. Earlier in his career, he held senior roles at Invesco and Van Kampen Investments, which was part of Morgan Stanley Investment Management.
The move comes as Barings, a subsidiary of MassMutual, also has partial ownership by MS&AD Insurance Group, following MassMutual's agreement to sell an 18% equity stake through Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance. This ownership structure provides Barings with a global insurance and asset management network, which Maute can leverage to expand distribution.
Cerulli's research indicates that among asset managers offering alternatives, just over half rely on a generalist wholesaler backed by dedicated alternatives specialists, while roughly a quarter use generalists alone. This split suggests there is no established best practice for pairing generalist and specialist coverage models, leaving room for firms like Barings to differentiate.
Advisors overseeing at least $500 million in assets currently allocate 4.4% of client portfolios to illiquid alternatives, a figure Cerulli projects will rise to 5.7% by 2027. This projected growth highlights the opportunity for asset managers to capture more of the wealth channel, but also underscores the need for effective education and distribution strategies.
Barings' appointment follows a broader trend of asset managers bolstering their wealth distribution teams. For example, Mercer recently tapped a BlackRock veteran for a similar role, and Edelman Financial Engines hired a retirement specialist to lead its RPS growth. These moves reflect the industry's focus on meeting advisor demand for alternatives and specialized expertise.
Cerulli also reported that most asset managers have already restructured or are actively rethinking how their product teams are segmented, as firms wrestle with staffing levels and specialization needed to support increasingly complex, multi-asset-class platforms. Barings' creation of the U.S. Wealth head role is a direct response to these challenges, positioning the firm to better serve advisors and their clients in a competitive landscape.
