Products August 4, 2014

Pacific Life Funds Launches Diversified Alts Fund

A recently introduced mutual fund from Pacific Life Funds offers a simplified approach to alternatives investing, with the goal of increasing overall portfolio diversification.
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The PL Diversified Alternatives Fund may help investors smooth out their overall portfolio risk and improve diversification, the firm says. The mutual fund has a fund-of-funds structure and invests in a variety of other mutual funds of Pacific Life Funds considered to follow alternative or nontraditional investment strategies.

Each underlying fund in the PL Diversified Alternatives Fund product represents a distinct investment strategy with varying degrees of volatility, the firm says. Return potential depends on market conditions. Among the variety of asset classes, the fund may invest in currency, emerging market debt, emerging market equity, floating rate loans, global absolute return funds, inflation-managed bonds, precious metals and real estate.

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“In terms of investment philosophy, several factors set this fund apart,” says Chris van Mierlo, chief marketing officer and senior vice president of sales for Pacific Life’s Retirement Solutions Division. “The fund provides low correlation with the broad markets. Our fund managers focus on a disciplined balance between correlation and performance, all while keeping a close eye on fund volatility.”

Rather than making short-term, tactical calls on alternatives market segments, all major decisions will be made with a long-term perspective in mind, he adds.

Pacific Life Fund Advisors is the fund manager of the PL Diversified Alternatives Fund. The portfolio managers include Howard Hirakawa, Carleton Muench and Samuel Park. The investment management team has more than than 48 years of combined experience managing fund-of-funds strategies, according to Pacific Life. Their expertise allows them to make all decisions regarding the fund’s allocations, investment risk management, and the selection of managers for each underlying fund.

The PL Diversified Alternatives Fund is offered in A, C, and Advisor shares. For more information, or to view the entire fund lineup from Pacific Life Funds, visit www.PLFunds.com or call 800-722-2333.

Products August 4, 2014

Southwest and Summit Adopt Matrix B/D Platform

Matrix Financial Solutions, Inc. announced that Southwest Securities and Summit Brokerage Services have implemented its broker/dealer platform.
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Southwest and Summit join more than 30 other firms already utilizing Matrix’s B/D platform, which supplies financial advisers and other investment professionals with access to more than 25,000 mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The firms hope to leverage the Matrix platform to increase visibility in the retirement planning marketplace and to provide their advisers with an opportunity to meet specific client needs.

Matrix says its B/D platform assists investment services firms by improving process efficiencies, providing assistance in meeting compliance guidelines and supporting regulatory mandates.

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“It’s clear that transparency is critical in this increasingly complex and competitive financial environment,” says John Moody, president of Matrix Financial Solutions. “Broker/dealers need visibility into plan data and information to quickly assess risk, increase productivity and keep up with the regulatory landscape.”

Though the new partnership, Southwest and Summit also gain access to Matrix’s Plan Level Data Feed, as well as the Level Compensation and RetireTool(k)it solutions. Plan Level Data Feed creates a window into the activity of a firm’s brokers and advisers, including breakdowns of plan asset values and investment activity. RetireTool(k)it leverages Matrix’s “TrueOpen” architecture and will support the firms’ advisers with everything from fund selection and monitoring to the crafting of investment policy statements, plan proposals, enrollment kits, and both quarterly and annual monitoring reports.

Larry Tate, Southwest Securities’ director of retail, believes that leveraging the Matrix suite of solutions will give his firm’s advisers the ability to provide retirement plan clients with the best investment options based on each plan’s individual needs.

“One of our core philosophies is to provide the adviser with the right tools to consistently offer high quality plan options that best meet the plan’s needs,” he adds.

Matrix Financial Solutions, Inc. is a Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. company.

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