Kent Scott, Commonfund Capital managing
director, relocated from the company’s headquarters in Wilton, CT. New hires include
Jeffrey Stabler, managing director of consultant relations, and two client
service directors, Jennifer Seidler and Issa Brant.
Scott’s relocation comes after 11 years with Commonfund. He has an A.B. in economics
from Stanford University and an S.M. in management from the MIT Sloan School of
Management and holds a chartered financial analyst (CFA) designation.
Stabler, also a CFA, previously worked as vice president of
global consultant relations for WHV Investment Management. His earlier jobs
include an 11-year term as director and head of consultant relations for RCM,
an Allianz Global Investors company.
Seidler transitioned to Commonfund from an independent
consulting practice in the San Francisco area. She also worked as a senior
financial associate for corporate cash management at the Royal Bank of Canada, San
Francisco.
Brandt joined Commonfund after 13 years with RCM
and Allianz Global Investors, where he moved through several roles to become client relations and marketing group manager.
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Almost half the respondents (48%) in TIAA-CREF’s second
annual Financial Advice Survey said it is hard to know which sources of
financial advice can be trusted.
Key findings from the survey show Americans’ lack of trust
and comfort in discussing financial advice. The survey also pointed to
perceived cost and lack of time as additional factors preventing individuals
from seeking advice.
“One of the things that came up is that people are
struggling to find trusted advice,” Dan Keady, director of financial planning
at TIAA-CREF, told PLANADVISER. “That 48% is a big number. More than ever,
people are saying they need trusted advice.”
About a third of survey participants said they don’t like
talking to anyone about their finances. Add to this the average person’s
time-squeezed life, and the perception that good financial cost is
prohibitively expensive, and seeking advice becomes even more of a challenge.
Keady pointed out that about a third of respondents said they did not have
enough time to get proper financial advice, and two-fifths said they believed
good financial advice would cost more than they can afford.
Some results were encouraging. People are saving for
retirement and beginning to focus on how to manage and leverage assets in
retirement. The recent survey found 63% of people who received financial advice
sought information on saving for retirement, compared with 52% a year earlier.
Advisers could see growing interest in annuitization, Keady
said, and advisers who want to ensure their conversations with plan
participants are relevant should also be prepared to give advice on saving to
meet health care expenses in retirement. “Those two things will drive
conversations going forward,” Keady said. “We’re starting to see more and more
people asking about these needs.”
Fifty-four percent of respondents who received advice said
they were looking for information on how to make retirement savings last, up
from 43% in 2012. “Many people have focused for a long time on saving for
retirement,” Keady said, “but at some point you have to convert that savings
into an income you can’t outlive. This is a growing trend, and a very important
one.” People are also beginning to ask for more advice about planning for medical
expenses in retirement, he said, with nearly half (43%) in 2013, compared with
35% a year earlier.
Education a Priority
This year’s survey showed an uptick in the number of people
seeking advice with some education tie-in, whether it was saving for education
or addressing student loans, from 30% in 2012 to 40% in 2013. Even the group of
respondents age 55 to 64 showed a rise in people interested in managing student
loans, Keady said.
Unsurprisingly, the survey found that advice and tools
designed specifically for different groups hold appeal. Four in 10 respondents
seeking advice use financial service provider websites or online tools to find
information—an increase of more than 15 percentage points from a year ago.
About half also said webinars (47%), live seminars (46%) and the ability to
interact with someone online (45%) would be helpful ways to receive financial
advice.
The crucial factors are how important it is for people to
have access to advice. “The flip side is that people who find advice they trust
are much more likely to act on it,” Keady said. “This dovetails with what we’ve
seen at TIAA-CREF. More than two-thirds of our participants who have in-person
advice take action. They save more; they rebalance; they look at
asset-allocation strategies.”
Keady pointed out that advice does not have to be face to
face. More than 50% of participants who received advice through a website took
positive financial action. The rise in people using websites and online tools
could be attributed to the increased use of handheld mobile devices.
The survey pointed up the importance of creating advice that
is readily accessible on a website, and knowing the population—Generation
X—that is most interested in getting advice through Internet sites and online
tools.
The key takeaway, Keady said, is that if people find
information they trust and it’s not too costly—such as workplace advice or
online tools and sites, they can take action to prepare adequately for
retirement.