Deals & People May 3, 2010

MassMutual Names Three to Executive Positions

MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division has announced three executive appointments, including poaches from OneAmerica and The Principal.
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MassMutual said the three appointments are:

  • Molly Knapp as managing director covering northern California and Alaska, effective today. She joins MassMutual from OneAmerica/AUL Retirement Services, where she most recently served as regional sales director. Prior to OneAmerica/AUL, she was employed as a director of retirement plan sales for Principal Financial Group. Knapp reports to Tanya Jones, Western divisional sales manager for MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division. 
  • JF Mannina to MassMutual’s Northeast client service team as relationship manager for the metropolitan New York City area, effective April 5. Mannina joined MassMutual in 2005 as part of the company’s executive development program and was most recently an investments management director in MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division. Mannina reports to Eric Leverson, assistant vice president of institutional relationship management.
  • Wayne Roth to the client management team as director of worksite solutions, effective April 12. He was most recently employed by The Principal Financial Group, where he served as a retirement resources consultant. In his newly created role, Roth helps support MassMutual clients and advisers in meeting overall plan health goals as well as helping participants identify and achieve a holistic retirement strategy. He reports to Tom Cremona, vice president, client management.

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Products May 3, 2010

Stylus Web Brings Plan-Level Reporting to Financial Advisers

Markov Processes International (MPI), which specializes in providing technology in the institutional and high-net-worth space, is now making available a Web-based manager research and reporting tool for all financial advisers.
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Stylus Web, evolved from MPI’s more high-touch Stylus Pro Suite, enables financial advisers to provide plan level reports for the 401(k), defined contribution (DC) and defined benefits (DB) markets. It is also available to the wholesale market to provide manager fact sheets, manager comparison, and portfolio-level reports. In addition to retirement plans, the tool can be used for other asset allocation and portfolio construction needs.

Jeff Schwartz, managing director at MPI, told PLANADVISER the firm has wanted to meet demand from advisers for an affordable tool to provide institutional reports and content. The new Stylus Web offers the same type of data as MPI’s Stylus Pro for institutional clients in a more streamlined, affordable solution for the broader adviser marketplace.

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Specifically, the cost is $5,000 per user per year, Schwartz said.

Stylus Web allows advisers to generate different report types, such as single manager, manager comparisons, portfolio-level, single plan, or plan comparisons. It offers Returns-Based Style Analysis (RBSA) analytics, holdings-based information, and other performance-based analytics, and gives advisers access to MPI’s proprietary models to detect style drift. Advisers can use the tool to create analysis or comparisons of hypothetical portfolios or compare managers by assigning peer groups and benchmarks on a user-specified basis, according to the firm.

The tool allows advisers to customize templates, such as what information to include, and add their firms’ branding.

Schwartz said the new offering comes at a time when plan sponsors are demanding more superior quality quantitative research. “Plan sponsors want to see that you’re going to be able to detect problems in a manager before the average investor does,” he said.  

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