New program to headline D.A. Davidson’s fee-based platform -

GREAT FALLS, MT, July 17, 2007 - D.A. Davidson & Co., the largest full service investment firm based in the Pacific Northwest, and Placemark Investments, Inc., the largest independent provider of active overlay portfolio management services, are pleased to announce the launch of a custom unified managed account (UMA) program created to continue D.A. Davidson's long tradition of providing innovative wealth management solutions for the firm's advisors and clients.

D.A. Davidson's open-architecture UMA program, with Placemark as the overlay manager, has investment minimums starting at $250,000 and incorporates a variety of unaffiliated investment products and flexible asset allocations, allowing D.A. Davidson financial consultants to build custom solutions for their clients. Consultants will have a broad array of investment options based on in-house research to choose from, including well-known separate account managers such as Alta Capital Management, Ashfield Capital Partners, Johnson Asset Management and Riverbridge Partners. Advisors can also select mutual funds and ETFs to be included in the portfolio and in coming months will be able to incorporate actively managed fixed income portfolios and additional investment products as the program is expanded.

"We wanted to launch a program that utilizes all of the most advanced features and benefits that a UMA can offer," said Cory Custer, Senior Vice President and Director of Managed Accounts for D.A. Davidson. "In partnership with Placemark, we feel that we can now offer our clients a best-in-class program, giving them better diversification, superior investment options, and higher degrees of customization and portfolio personalization."

Placemark Investments, based in Dallas, TX, and Wellesley, MA, will have investment discretion on all accounts. D.A. Davidson's financial consultants will have access to Placemark's advisor workstation application to profile clients, produce proposals, configure investment solutions, and facilitate the account opening and maintenance processes.

DA Davidson clients will have the option of adding Strategic Tax Overlay Management to their UMA portfolios, in which Placemark custom constructs a client's portfolio based on their individual tax rates, gains recognition limits, and other custom tax management criteria. Strategic Tax Management will allow D.A. Davidson consultants to deploy household level integrated tax-management strategies across a client's multiple accounts/registrations, while also considering taxable gains and losses outside of the UMA portfolios.

"We are looking for this program to be our flagship fee-based platform, and the focus of future development, advisor education, and asset raising," continued Custer. "Placemark was able to build a program that not only meets the needs of our clients today, but also has the scalability and feature set to grow in the future. We see this program developing into a broader integrated Unified Managed Household platform, allowing our advisors to offer higher degrees of service across all of a client's assets, including assets they might have with other financial institutions."

"We're delighted to partner with D.A. Davidson in developing innovative and integrated unified investment solutions for the benefit of the firm's advisors and their clients," said Lee Chertavian, Placemark's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "Unified Managed Account and Unified Managed Household programs provide state-of-the-art effective solutions to investors and are rapidly supplanting an outdated business model, featuring traditional separately managed account programs, in which multiple managers directly trade small pieces of a client's overall portfolio in an uncoordinated fashion."

About D.A. Davidson

D.A. Davidson & Co. is an employee-owned investment firm with operations in 16 states. Founded in 1935, the firm is the largest securities firm based in the region, with over $20 billion in client assets under management and approximately 950 professionals. As a full-service investment firm, Davidson provides research, investment banking services, bond sales and trading, stock sales and trading and private brokerage services. D.A. Davidson's investment banking group underwrites public offerings, serves as a placement agent for private financings, and advises companies on mergers and acquisitions.