Deals & People April 3, 2014

Retirement Plan Solutions Partners with Pensionmark

Financial adviser Erik Swenson, president of Retirement Plan Solutions, has affiliated with Pensionmark Retirement Group, creating RPS Pensionmark.
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The partnership will allow Swenson and his Milwaukee, Wisconsin-based RPS Pensionmark team to grow and expand the depth of their services, while allowing him to continue his independent business model. His clients will continue to receive personalized and unbiased retirement plan guidance.

“Our goal since the inception of Retirement Plan Solutions ten years ago has been to provide highest quality services to the employers, plan fiduciaries, and employees of the 401(k) and other corporate retirement plans we serve. We are grateful to announce our strategic affiliation with Pensionmark, and to integrate their award-winning retirement plan tools and services with those we provide in an effort to further ensure our delivery of highly effective services to our clients and their employees for many years to come,” says Swenson.

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“Erik brings with him great vision and an experienced relationship team. His commitment to excellence fits well with our culture. We are glad to have Erik and his team as a part of the Pensionmark family,” comments Mike Woods, managing director at Pensionmark Retirement Group’s Santa Barbara corporate office.

Swenson has 34 years of experience in the financial industry in Wisconsin. His experience focuses on providing investment advisory services to 401(k) and other corporate retirement plans, 401(k) education and other services designed to help employees pursue retirement readiness and wealth management services to private clients.

Deals & People April 3, 2014

Great-West Acquires J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services

Great-West has reached an agreement to acquire the J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services large-market recordkeeping business, which has $167 billion in plan assets across 200 plan sponsor clients serving 1.9 million participants.
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The acquisition was of interest to Great-West because over the years, J.P. Morgan has built a great business in the large-plan market, Robert L. Reynolds, president and chief executive officer of Great-West Lifeco U.S., tells PLANADVISER. “This jump starts the whole business, bringing us scale and a client base to truly build a world-class retirement plan service.”

Reynolds also notes that the transaction is part of Great-West’s commitment to expand its “expertise, talent and business scale” in the retirement plan market. Upon the close of the deal, Great-West Financial’s retirement services recordkeeping assets will increase to $387 billion and its participant base to 6.8 million, making it second only to Fidelity Investments in both categories in the DC recordkeeping business, according to the most recent PLANSPONSOR Recordkeeping Survey. 

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J.P. Morgan will continue to serve small retirement plans through its Retirement Link unit, which uses Great-West’s FASCore as its recordkeeping platform (see “J.P. Morgan Announces Recordkeeping Solution“).  

“We are very excited about the transaction,” Michael Falcon, head of retirement at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, tells PLANADVISER. He calls the deal “very complementary,” as Great-West has “an existing expertise in serving large plans” along with extensive technological capabilities. It will also enable J.P. Morgan to continue to concentrate “on our priority and focus: investments,” he says.

As JP Morgan was a client of the FASCore platform, and will remain a client, the company had a lot of familiarity and first-hand knowledge of the platform, Reynolds notes. 

Client Service 

Based in Overland Park, Kansas, J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services, has more than 1,000 personnel including sales staff, consultant relations, relationship managers and client service specialists. The employees of J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services will become employees of Great-West, with service to existing customers continuing seamlessly, Reynolds and Falcon note. David Musto, CEO of J.P. Morgan Retirement Plan Services, will report directly to Reynolds, according to the executives.    

Musto will work alongside Charlie Nelson, president, retirement services, Great-West Financial, and Edmund F. Murphy III, head of defined contribution at Putnam Investments, Reynolds says. The first job of these “three very talented people” is to continue to serve the books of business they have, and over time the three executives will work to create a plan to provide best-in-class service to all plans and participants, Reynolds says.

Although FASCore is the platform for the small recordkeeping clients of JP Morgan, it is not the platform for the large-market clients, so there will need to be conversions to Great-West’s FASCore recordkeeping platform, Reynolds says, though no timeline was given.

“We selected Great-West for continuity and the commitment [the firm] has made to bring the business on wholesale, with a seamless continuation of the back office to minimize disruption” for clients; Falcon says.

The deal is expected to close in the third quarter, pending regulatory approval. Neither firm disclosed terms of the transaction. It comes on the heels of Great-West’s announcement last month that it will combine the retirement business of Putnam Investments with Great-West Financial and that Robert L. Reynolds, was named president and chief executive officer of Great-West Lifeco U.S., the holding company that owns Great-West Financial and Putnam Investments (see “Great-West, Putnam to Combine Retirement Businesses”). 

The addition of the JP Morgan book of business to those of Great-West and Putnam will allow participants to get the best from all three platforms, Reynolds says. 

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