Defined
contribution (DC) plan fees—including recordkeeping, trust and custody fees—remained
flat this year, NEPC found in a survey.
The median fee per participant is $59,
just a slight increase from $57 in 2016. This follows the previous seven years when
the fees declined. In 2006, when NEPC first conducted this survey, the fees
were $118.
“After seven consistently decreasing for the past seven years, it’s surprising
to see fees flatten out even though we had been anticipating it,” says Ross Breman,
NEPC DC strategist. “Plan fees were the lowest in a decade last year, and now
the trend has taken a breather. Low fees have been a source of mixed emotions.
While sponsors are able to highlight their good work by reducing fees for
participants, it’s done at the risk of hindering innovation and service. The
race to the bottom is often a double-edged sword.”
The survey also found that the median plan offers 23 investment options, up
slightly from the 22 in 2016. In 2006, sponsors offered a median of only 14
investment options. Ninety-five percent of sponsors have a target-date fund
(TDF) in their fund lineup, and 90% use TDFs as their qualified default
investment alternative (QDIA).
Seventy-seven percent of plans use some form of revenue sharing and are looking
for ways to give excess revenue back to participants. Seventy percent use
revenue sharing to cover fees. However, 29% use a flat dollar charge. Only 5%
of plans have excess revenue retained by their recordkeeper, and 33% return it
to participants. Among non-bundled plans, 60% use revenue sharing to offset
fees, 24% return these dollars to participants, and 30% have no revenue
sharing.
NEPC surveyed 123 DC plan sponsors with $138 billion in aggregate assets,
representing 1.5 million participants.
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Cetera Financial
Group has hired Adeline Wong as vice president, retirement plan fiduciary programs, and Drew Russell as program manager in the Cetera Retirement Plan Solutions group, which specializes in
supporting retirement-focused financial advisers.
In her new role, Wong will focus on managing and expanding
Cetera’s plan-focused fiduciary programs in order to accommodate a significant
anticipated increase in demand for such programs among retirement plan advisers
following initial implementation of the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule. Previously, Wong served in a number of management roles at LPL
Financial, including vice president at LPL Financial Retirement Partners. This
role allowed her to oversee all retirement plan business including fee-based
consulting.
Within the Cetera Retirement Plan Solutions group, Russell
will oversee the execution of Department of Labor compliance policies, as well as the
design and management of participant engagement strategies. Prior to joining
Cetera, he served in a number of roles at The Standard, including a leadership
position with the company’s new client conversions group.
Global consulting firm Mercer
has announced the appointments of Jen
Faifer and John Lapinski to key
leadership roles in the firm’s Detroit office. Faifer recently assumed the role
of Detroit office business leader for health. Lapinski has joined Mercer as a senior healthcare consultant.
Both will report to Eric
Bassett, Mercer’s central market business leader for health.
Faifer has more than 12 years of experience in the employee
benefits industry, having spent the past five years as Mercer’s Central Market
Regulatory Resources Group leader. In addition, she serves as an adjunct professor
at The John Marshall Law School in Chicago, where she teaches a range of
employee benefits topics. Her J.D. is from Tulane University School of
Law; and her bachelor’s degree in political science is from
the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Lapinski brings 28 years of experience in employee benefits
consulting to Mercer. Most recently, he served as Michigan market leader and
Midwest region health practice leader for Conduent HR Services, responsible for
client retention and business development of the firm’s health practice. He previously
worked for Mercer between 1997 and 2002. His past roles included Michigan health and benefits consulting leader. He earned his master’s degree from
Indiana University Southeast, and his bachelor’s degree in economics from Wake
Forest University.
NEXT: OneAmerica Names West
Coast Relationship Executive
OneAmerica Names West
Coast Relationship Executive
Neil Garrett has
joined OneAmerica as a relationship executive serving the West
Coast region. He will be based in the company’s San Diego office. Garrett
brings more than 26 years of experience in the retirement plan industry to his
new role, having served in both provider and adviser roles.
He specializes in mid- and large-sized institutional
retirement plan clients. Garrett previously worked for Transamerica. Prior to
returning to the provider side, Garrett worked as a registered investment adviser (RIA) within his own practice. He joined OneAmerica in July.
NEXT: Callan Names New CEO
Callan Names New CEO
Institutional investment consulting firm Callan announced that current president and director of researchGreg
Allen will assume the title of CEO
and president, effective September
1, 2017.
Meanwhile, current chairman
and CEO Ron Peyton will assume
the title of executive chairman. Callan
is also shifting its legal corporate structure from a single S-Corp to a
limited liability corporation (LLC). Callan says the reason for this structure
change is to support the firm’s ongoing commitment to broadly distributed
employee ownership.
“We are continuing the rollout of a succession plan that was
put in place 10 years ago,” Peyton explains. “Greg and I have been managing the
firm together since that time. No reporting lines are changing aside from Greg
reporting to the Board, and I will continue to be an executive of the firm,
involved in day-to-day management, and working with our valued clients.”
NEXT: OppenheimerFunds
Hires Senior Business Consultant
OppenheimerFunds
Hires Senior Business Consultant
Paul Brunswick
has joined global asset manager OppenheimerFunds
as senior business consultant. He will
represent the firm's CEO Advisor Institute development programs to advisers across the United States.
Brunswick has more than 30 years of experience in the
financial services industry behind him. He’s worked closely with institutional
and ultra-high-net-worth clients, as well as financial advisers and branch
managers. He joins OppenheimerFunds from CEG Worldwide, where he led the corporate solutions division. Prior to CEG, he was the managing director of
national business development for Smith Barney.
The CEO Advisor Institute programs include Compelling
Conversations, Professional Practice, and Constructing and Managing a
Synergistic Team.
NEXT: John Hancock
Retirement Names Taft Hartley Sales Manager
John Hancock
Retirement Names Taft Hartley Sales Manager
John Hancock
Retirement Plan Services has named Nick
McParlandnational sales manager
of mid, large and Taft-Hartley markets. The transition is effective September
1.
McParland has been with John Hancock since 2013, most
recently responsible for new business sales and relationship management across
the country in the Taft-Hartley area. The Taft-Hartley team will report to Scott Francolini, senior vice president of strategic
relationship management, until McParland's successor is named.
Before joining John Hancock, McParland was director of institutional services at Intercontinental Real Estate and was responsible for
raising capital for private equity real estate and hedge fund of funds from
institutional investors. Before that, he held various positions at other
financial organizations with responsibilities ranging from institutional sales
to relationship management.
McParland earned a bachelor's degree in economics from St.
Lawrence University.
NEXT:T. Rowe Price Names
Next CFO
T. Rowe Price Names
Next CFO
T. Rowe Price Group
announced that Céline Dufétel will
join the firm as vice president by
December of this year. The firm also revealed she will become chief financial officer (CFO) and treasurer in the first quarter of 2018.
She will succeed Ken
Moreland, who will continue as CFO until no later than the filing of the
Form 10-K for the 2017 fiscal year in February 2018. Moreland plans to retire
afterward following nearly 14 years of service to the firm.
As CFO, Céline will oversee all financial activities of the
firm, as well as manage the various functions within the CFO group including
finance, treasury, risk and audit. She also will assume responsibility for the corporate strategy team and lead the firm's relationships with analysts and T.
Rowe Price Group stockholders.
Céline comes to T. Rowe Price from Neuberger Berman. She
previously served as partner and head of the North American asset management practice
at McKinsey & Company. She will be based at the firm's corporate headquarters
in Baltimore.
NEXT:Paychex Acquires HR
Outsourcing Holdings
Paychex Acquires HR
Outsourcing Holdings
Paychex announced
the acquisition of HR Outsourcing
Holdings and all of its operating subsidiaries. HR Outsourcing Holdings is a national
professional employer organization that provides human resource solutions to
small and medium-sized businesses in more than 35 states.
The company is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, and has
approximately 140 employees “who will be offered the opportunity to become
Paychex employees.” Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
NEXT: ERISA
Attorney Joins The Wagner Law Group
ERISA
Attorney Joins The Wagner Law Group
Patrice
Maloney-Knauff has joined The Wagner Law Group, an ERISA and employee benefits law firm as of counsel.
Maloney-Knauff is a corporate attorney with more than
25 years of experience advising pension plans, insurance companies and
investment managers. He specializes in ERISA plan investing, derivatives, and
asset management. Prior to joining The Wagner Law Group, Maloney-Knauff served
as Allstate Insurance Company's investment and business transactions corporate counsel for nearly two decades. In that role, she served as lead investment
counsel to pension plans and advised Allstate and its investment clients on all
matters relating to pension plan investments. She reviewed and negotiated ERISA
plan investment transaction documents for transactions involving derivatives,
private equity, hedge funds, securities lending, repurchase, and security
forward transactions.
NEXT: Pacific Life
Completes Pension Buy-In De-Risking TransactionPacific Life
Completes Pension Buy-In De-Risking Transaction
Pacific Life
Insurance Company announced the close of a $35 million secured buy-In transaction.
The client is American Water Works
Association (AWWA), an international nonprofit association located in
Denver, Colorado.
“AWWA was pleased to be able to execute a strategy where we
could effectively eliminate the financial risks of the plan and solidify our
participants’ retirement benefits with a very strong company,” says Kevin Mann, chief financial officer of AWWA. “Now, we can go through the
regulatory process of plan termination and focus on the administrative aspects
without the risks and complications that would have been necessary with other
approaches.”
Qualified Annuity
Services (QAS) has been advising AWWA since 2013 in identifying risks and
providing dynamic modeling of risk-transfer pricing.
“We were able to implement a strategy within a few critical
weeks after more than four years of planning,” said Joe Bellersen, president
of QAS. “We placed an annuity with
Pacific Life earlier than AWWA’s five- to eight-year timeline for full plan
termination and substantially under budget.”
NEXT:Wilshire Consulting
Appoints Key Executives
Wilshire Consulting
Appoints Key Executives
Wilshire Consulting,
the institutional investment advisory and outsourced chief investment officer business unit
of Wilshire Associates, announced the appointment of four managing directors: Bradley Baker, Rose Dean,
Ali Kazemi, and Ned McGuire.
Bradley Baker joined Wilshire in 2005 and provides
consulting services to corporate and public pension funds, endowments,
foundations and healthcare organizations. He will continue to serve as the
chair of Wilshire Consulting’s private real assets committee in his
new role.
Rose Dean specializes in providing consulting services to
corporate and public pension funds, endowments, foundations and healthcare
organizations. She joined Wilshire in 2015 after running a start-up alternative
investment consulting business, where she advised on opportunities focused on
alternative investment strategies. She spent the first half of her 16-year
career in the financial markets as a fixed-income trader and a portfolio
manager.
Ali Kazemi provides investment and risk management
consulting services to public and corporate pension plans, foundations and
endowments, and insurance companies. He joined Wilshire in 2001 and spent
several years in product development and client servicing. He now runs the risk
management team which he helped build at Wilshire Consulting.
Ned McGuire joined Wilshire in 2011 and is a member of
Wilshire Consulting’s pension risk solutions group. He is responsible for
researching and maintaining Wilshire’s proprietary asset allocation models,
conducting asset allocation studies, and serving as an actuarial consultant to
plan sponsors.
NEXT: Aviva Investors Names
Executive Director
Aviva Investors Names
Executive Director
Aviva Investors
has announced the appointment of Tom
Meyers as executive director and head
of Americas client solutions,effective September 12, 2017.
In this role, Meyers will have overall responsibility for
leading the institutional client solutions business and overseeing sub-adviser
relationships in the Americas. He will also have local oversight responsibility
for the client solutions team. Based in Chicago, he will have dual reporting
lines to Mike Craston, CEO, and and Louise
Kay, global head of client solutions.
Prior to joining Aviva Investors, Meyers was managing senior
investment director at Legal and General Investment Management America, where
he led the U.K. firm’s expansion into the U.S. market.
He will focus on accelerating Aviva Investors’ growth in the
region, while increasing demand from major consultants and large pension plans
for its outcome-oriented portfolio offerings.
Meyers earned a dual bachelor’s degree in organizational
behavior/management and psychology from Brown University. He holds the chartered financial analyst designation and is a member of the CFA Institute
and the CFA Society of Chicago.
NEXT: BPAS Hires Midwest
External Wholesaler
BPAS Hires Midwest
External Wholesaler
BPAS, a national
provider of retirement plan and fund administration, announced that Mike Hahn has joined the firm as an external wholesaler located in the
Midwest. Hahn’s focus will be on developing the Midwest market in partnership
with financial intermediaries and advisers.
Hahn has served in business development at Security National
Bank and in sales at Billings and Company.
Through a structure implemented in 2016, BPAS services
financial partners through a combined approach involving external wholesalers
and sales relationship managers. This strategy delivers onsite assistance to
bid and win plans, along with relationship management services to maintain
successful books of business. Hahn will be assigned an initial caseload of
financial intermediary partners and will add new partnerships through his sales
efforts.