IMHO: Theories of Relativity

I was having coffee with a buddy of mine a couple of weeks back, and before long the discussion turned to music; specifically the new Bruce Springsteen CD.
Suffice it to say that he had just acquired it, and was enjoying it immensely. As it turned out, I had had a chance to listen to the album (yes, I’m old enough to still refer to them as albums) online – and had ordered it. I had not, however, received it in the mail yet.
My friend – who had picked up his copy at a Starbucks – hesitated – then asked me how much I paid. I then told him (about $10) – and, almost as a courtesy (after all, money had already changed hands) asked how much he had paid.
Well, I never did find out – though it was pretty clear he paid more than I did. In fact, I’ve seen the prices that Starbucks charges on the few CDs they stock there, and it may well have been a LOT more.
Now, I’m sure the Bruce Springsteen album that was delivered to my house (that very afternoon, as it turned out) was identical in every pertinent respect with the one my friend picked up along with his morning coffee a couple of days earlier. On the other hand, he had it in his hands immediately without making a special trip. Forty-eight hours earlier that probably seemed like a good bargain – but one that clearly lost some of its luster the closer mine came to delivery. In short, his comfort with the bargain he’d struck was clearly relative to my experience.
Things aren’t usually that clear cut with retirement plans, unfortunately. Every 401(k) plan is just a little bit different, and some quite a bit so. Every employer brings a different level of commitment to the process, as does every adviser – and the workforce that such programs are offered to surely represent a mosaic of difference as diverse as America herself. There is no such thing as a “typical’ 401(k), and – much to the discomfiture of some – there is no such thing as a single reasonable amount to pay for the services that would ostensibly be provided to that 401(k).
Yet for all the buzz around the issue of reasonable fees, it ranked sixth on the list of criteria in selecting a provider in PLANSPONSOR’s 2007 Defined Contribution Survey – just behind variety of investment options. Still, in evaluating participant services, “fees for participant services’ was the lowest ranked element – and “fairness of fees’ and “fee disclosure’ were the most problematic elements of plan sponsor service rankings. Today most plan sponsors feel that they are paying reasonable fees – but there are growing concerns that they aren’t. Concerns that are almost certainly fueled by the growing attentions of the Department of Labor, Congress, and the plaintiff’s bar to that very issue.
Sooner or later, like that Springsteen album, people are going to have a chance to realize that they are perhaps paying very different fees for what may well be, in every pertinent respect, identical services. And that’s, IMHO, going to make for some very unsatisfied customers.

State Street Faces Two More Lawsuits Over Bond Fund Losses

Two more lawsuits have been filed against State Street Corp. over its now controversial stewardship of fixed income funds marketed as following conservative trading strategies, but which faced substantial losses from subprime mortgage-related holdings.

In addition to an October suit from Prudential Retirement Insurance and Annuity Co. (See Prudential Accuses SSgA of “Misrepresented’ Investment Strategies), the Boston-based State Street faces lawsuits from New York publisher UniSystems Inc. and Nashua Corp., a Nashua, New Hampshire paper products company.

Also, last month, the Keller Rohrback L.L.P. law firm announced it was investigating State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) and State Street Bank & Trust Company by for potential violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by marketing funds with misleading statements on investment strategy (See Keller Rohrback Announces ERISA Investigation Concerning SSgA Bond Funds). In addition, officials in Idaho and Alaska are following the legal goings-on since their state employee pension funds were invested in enhanced index bond funds offered by State Street — funds buffeted by the recent turmoil in investments tied to subprime mortgages geared toward customers with spotty credit (See State Street Could Face Another Investment Strategies Suit).

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANADVISERdash daily newsletter.

New Lawsuit Allegations

The suits allege State Street sold the affected bond offerings as facing a small amount of risk, but then State Street actually took imprudently large positions in mortgage-backed securities that ended up causing investors significant losses when the nation’s subprime mortgage market collapsed this summer.

For example, the Nashua suit claims its pension fund lost $5.6 million in State Street’s Bond Market Fund. As of the end of July, the Bond Market Fund “had invested more than 27% of the portfolio in asset-backed securities comprised of home equity loans” in the mortgage industry’s subprime segment, the Nashua lawsuit alleged.

In late August, Nashua received a letter from State Street advising it of a more than 12.26% loss in the fund that month, in a period when the Lehman Aggregate Bond Index, the index the fund was supposed to track, posted a 1.2% gain, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuits allege that State Street’s actions represent a fiduciary breach under ERISA.

“State Street represented those bond funds to be conservative investments designed to closely track, and slightly outperform, designated bond market indices,” the UniSystems complaint charged. “In reality, State Street converted the purportedly stable conservative investments into a high-stakes gamble in breach of State Street’s fiduciary duties under ERISA.”

As it has since the controversy began, State Street continued to insist it committed no wrongdoing. Arlene Roberts, a State Street spokeswoman, told the Associated Press that the company was “disappointed that a small number of our active fixed-income clients” have sued.

“We pride ourselves on our commitment to clients, and we believe that we managed these strategies consistent with stated investment objectives. The events in the fixed-income markets over the summer were unprecedented. We intend to defend ourselves against these complaints,” she told the news wire service.

State Street also contended that the funds at issue in the suits amounted to a small fraction of the $244 billion in fixed-income funds it manages. About $36 billion of that total is actively managed — as opposed to passive funds that track indexes. The proportion exposed to subprime mortgages amounted to $7.8 billion as of June 30, and just $2.6 billion as of September 30, Roberts told the Associated Press.

The UniSystems complaint can be viewed here.

The Nashua Corp. complaint is available here.

«