Managed accounts are segregated accounts, owned by investors, but with the trading decision-making function delegated to a fund manager. Managed accounts differ from mutual funds as in a mutual fund, contributions from traders are pooled together in a corpus, which is managed by the fund manager: the trader holds a portion of the portfolio and has no practical ownership of the underlying securities.Two of the major modes in which managed accounts operate are Percentage Allocation Money Management (PAMM) and Multi- Account Manager (MAM).
PAMM and MAM both allow fund managers to manage multiple segregated accounts through a single account, without the need to create a trading fund. Client managed accounts are all connected to the manager’s main account and all trades made by the manager are distributed proportionally among account holders.
Similarly, the gains or losses arising out of a fund manager’s performance get proportionally distributed among the segregated account holders.
To ensure the security of investors funds, client deposits remain in their own trading accounts, the manager does not have access to these accounts and therefore cannot make any withdrawals. The individual investors are the only ones who are able to make deposits & withdrawals to/from these managed accounts. However, the performance fees that are earned by account managers are automatically withdrawn from clients’ accounts, in accordance with the terms of the contract.