Deals & People July 8, 2010

BofA Merrill Lynch Adds Two to Retirement Team

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has expanded its Retirement & Philanthropic Services (RPS) group with the addition of two new members, one focused on the small business segment and one focused on the mid- to large market.
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Assuming the role of head of Business Retirement Solutions, Rich Linton will be responsible for managing the company’s small business retirement solutions including the Advisor Alliance platform, formerly MLConnect (see “BofA Merrill Revitalizes Recordkeeping Platform”), and the SEP/Simple offering.

Linton comes to Bank of America Merrill Lynch from Fidelity Investments, where he held a variety of senior leadership roles over 20 years at Fidelity focused on mid-market clients, sales strategy, financial operations, client service management, and client reporting.  He most recently served as the Executive Vice President of the Advisor Retirement Group.

Steve Ulian will join RPS as the head of Institutional Retirement & Benefits Solutions, responsible for the proprietary 401(k) platform, defined benefit plan administration, RFPs, pricing and underwriting, and Equity Plan Services. He will focus on delivering integrated benefits solutions to mid- and large market companies, according to a memo from Andy Seig head of RPS.

Ulian also comes from Fidelity Investments where he was Executive Vice President in Sales and Relationship Management for the Workplace Investing group. He has also held a number of roles at Fidelity including head of product development and management, head of the defined contribution investment only business, and sales manager for the large market segment. 

“I am confident that Rich will partner across Global Wealth & Investment Management and the broader enterprise to ensure greater alignment of our small business resources to drive maximum growth. Steve will work closely with our partners in the Global Commercial Bank, Global Corporate & Investment Bank and U.S. Wealth Management to deliver integrated benefits and solutions to a broad range of clients,” Seig said in the memo.

Both Linton and Ulian will report directly to Seig.

“To drive growth and capitalize on opportunities in our retirement business, [Linton and Ulian’s] roles have been designed as a combination of newly formed positions on our retirement leadership team and responsibilities previously held by John Furlong, who left the company in January 2010,” according to Matt Card, a Bank of America Merrill Lynch spokesman. “We continue to assess our leadership team across RPS to identify where additions are needed to support growth and our strategic objectives.”

David Roberts, who leads Equity Plan Services, including equity administration, Equity Methods, the employee stock purchase program, executive services and non-qualified deferred compensation, will report to Ulian.

Products July 8, 2010

Russell Launches Multi-Manager Commodity Strategies Fund

 Russell Investments has launched what it says is the first U.S. multi-manager mutual fund with a specific commodities mandate.
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Russell has also added the Commodity Strategies Fund as a new underlying fund to its asset allocation strategies, including LifePoints Funds, Target Date Series and Target Portfolio Series. The fund also is available as a standalone fund for advisers who wish to provide their clients with exposure to energy, industrial metals, livestock, precious metals, grains and softs.

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According to the announcement, the Russell Commodity Strategies Fund is a new mutual fund that will pursue a commodities strategy with the aim of delivering portfolio diversification and exposure to the long-term performance of global commodity markets.  Russell initiated the fund by bringing together two investment managers from separate investment management firms with what was described as “extensive commodities experience”; Credit Suisse Asset Management and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Both managers have tailored mandates in order to meet the fund’s investment objective, according to the announcement.

The new commodities strategy fund will invest in commodities-linked securities, derivative instruments, cash and fixed income securities that together are intended to provide clients with exposure to the performance of the collateralized commodity futures markets. In addition, Russell says that the fund will invest in a wholly-owned offshore subsidiary that will invest in commodity-linked swaps and other investments in which the fund cannot directly invest for tax reasons.

 “In the continued search for better diversification and broader global opportunities, some investors are looking beyond traditional markets to commodities and real assets. While volatile on their own, when included as a small part of a well-diversified portfolio, a commodities strategy has the potential to lower a portfolio’s overall long-term volatility,” said James Ind, portfolio manager at Russell. “Russell already offers commodities strategies to clients in other markets around the world as well as U.S. foundations and endowments, and now we can provide U.S. retail clients with the opportunity to invest in these strategic assets.”

Additional information about the Russell Commodity Strategies Fund is available at: www.russell.com/us/Investment_Products/Russell_Funds/Commodity_Strategies_overview.asp

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