Attila Toth

Portfolio Evaluations (Warren, New Jersey)
Reported by PLANADVISER Staff
Atilla Toth was not satisfied with the career path he was shown while working in Merrill Lynch’s recordkeeping area, although it did give him exposure to how retirement plans worked and allowed him to get licensed. When he moved for a short time to a firm in New Jersey, providing investment consulting for wealthy individuals, he noticed that they were interested in retirement plan help. So, in 1991, he got together with two colleagues and spent a year planning what would, in 1992, become Portfolio Evaluations Inc. (PEI). PEI focuses on providing full-service consulting to corporate retirement plans, and its core business revolves around providing ongoing performance reviews. “I love the job because it is extremely diversified,” Toth explains.

For 2010, Toth predicts an increase in fee analysis and fiduciary education. There have been a number of clients for which he says he has been able to “save millions of dollars in fees” and yield a more attractive fee structure without having to go to an RFP.

“My job is to help the plan sponsor make sure a plan benefit is competitive from the fee, fiduciary, and benchmarking perspectives,” Toth comments—and that, he says, helps protect the plan committees. When his clients get their quarterly performance report, they also receive industry updates that Toth has compiled to help keep the sponsors abreast of what is happening.

When benchmarking a plan, Toth says he examines multiple areas, including fees, investment performance, and the variety of types of investments offered, as well as plan design options such as the use of automatic features or Roth, and retirement readiness measurements, such as deferral rates and participation levels. “I am focused around maximizing participation and keeping deferrals up to give people the opportunity to retire successfully,” he says.
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