Hot off the Presses

PLAN SPONSORS & PARTICIPANTS

Internet service 401kAdvisory provides investment recommendations to investors seeking 401(k) advice tailored to their particular situation and risk tolerance. The tool analyzes a client’s statement and risk profile and then prepares personalized advice, delivered via e-mail, for a one-time fee.

Mercerlaunched an online educational program, “Feel better about retirement,” available to employees whose 401(k) plans Mercer administers, as well as the general public. It addresses participants’ investment fears and encourages positive retirement planning.

TIAA-CREF offers the Retiree Health Care Savings Plan, which allows employers to set up defined contribution-style plans to which employees can contribute part of earnings, post-tax, to be used for health-care costs in retirement.

Hewitt Associates and Mercer have taken up Prudential Retirement’s IncomeFlex Target guaranteed income product.

AtPrime Media, Inc., announced its Compare and Rank Online Service, previously unavailable to the general public. The software enables the user to compare and rank plan earnings, expenses, balance sheet items, plan income, and funding ratios with other qualified retirement plans from official Form 5500 tax returns.

Diversified Investment Advisorsunveiled a plan review document to help plan sponsors keep track of their plans’ effectiveness. The offering includes a more detailed look at basic plan metrics, such as participation and average deferral rates.

CMC Interactive added outsourcing services for firms servicing qualified retirement plans. CMC Outsourcing provides registered investment advisory (RIA) services, recordkeeping, and plan administration.

McCready and Keene announced that it offers custom risk-based and age-based portfolios within the same retirement plan, utilizing an asset allocation strategy composed of a plan’s core fund lineup.

Financial Life Design, an independent advisory firm, wrote a paper and designed a Web site (FinancialLifeReDesign.com) for Baby Boomers planning to recoup their losses in their retirement plans.

Russell Investmentscreated five global service lines: Consulting and Advisory Services, DB/DC Outsourcing, OpenWorld, Retail, and Russell Investment Services (RIS).

Rollover provider RolloverSystems Inc. (RSI) is cutting the annual fee it charges for IRAs. Retirement plan participants who roll over a retirement account to RolloverSystems will pay $24 annually for personalized investment support from licensed retirement counselors, access to FundFinder, and account administration.

MassMutual’s Retirement Services Division added holistic financial planning content to the MassMutual RetireSmart Academy, its participant education Web site.

DWS Investments – Americas, the U.S. retail unit of Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division, unveiled the DWS Fee Transparency Report, which is designed as a fee disclosure summary to give plan sponsors and their advisers oversight of plan-specific fees and expenses.

A sample plan amendment to suspend safe harbor non-elective contributions was released by ftwilliam.com, at no additional charge for both per-plan and annual subscription holders of the ftwilliam.com plan document software.

Transamerica Retirement Services announced a service, Plan Administration Service Support (PASS), which gives plan sponsors the opportunity to delegate day-to-day plan administration responsibilities to Transamerica. PASS offers capabilities such as tracking employees’ enrollment eligibility, preparing enrollment materials and notices, and mailing materials to employees’ homes.

Law firm Kelley Drye & Warren and Rocaton Investment Advisors announced the Plan Fiduciaries’ ERISA Compliance Investment Assessment.

Financial Engines launched Financial Engines Retirement Plan, a personalized statement giving participants the fund-by-fund changes that Financial Engines plans to make in their accounts.

Diversified Investment Advisors, Inc., introduced a new version of its OnTrack report, which helps participants better assess their total financial situation and make decisions about saving and investing for their retirement goals.

CPI Qualified Plan Consultants, Inc., a third-party recordkeeping and administration company, unveiled a program to invest employees’ salary deferral contributions the day they are withheld from participants’ paycheck.

Great-West Retirement Services and ING U.S. Retirement Services (ING) notified the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of its intent to sponsor a 403(b) prototype plan under the IRS’s proposed 403(b) prototype plan program.

P&A Retirement Plan Services announced a program that allows participants of defined contribution plans to buy and sell exchange-traded funds (ETFs) like mutual funds. P&A401(k), P&A403(b), and P&A457, working with Mid Atlantic Trust Company’s ETFxChange platform, give advisers access and plan sponsors to more than 800 ETFs.

ADVISER TOOLS

Retirement Plan Advisory Group (RPAG), an affiliate of 401(k) Advisors, launched The Fiduciary Fitness Program for RPAG members. Consisting of 12 modules, the offering delivers resources to identify potential plan weaknesses and restore plans to full compliance through education, diligence, and process.

Pershing Advisor Solutions, a subsidiary of The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, and Moss Adams published a study titled “Mission Possible II: The Link Between Operational Efficiency and Human Capital.”

The MetLife Broker-Dealer Group launched enhancements to its Wealth Management Services (WMS) platform, including a flexible unified managed account (UMA). The online investment advisory platform enables advisers to integrate a client’s accounts into a single, consolidated portfolio.

Standard & Poor’s Equity Research Services released MarketScope 3.0 (MSA), a platform that provides financial advisers with investment intelligence and tools about multiple asset classes.

AdviceAmerica announced the next generation of its AdvisorVision product, AdvisorVision 7. It targets both independent advisers as well as institutional firms and includes a new Advice Engine that automatically determines optimal plans.

iShares has launched the “iShares in 401(k) Program” to help financial advisers better utilize ETFs as standard investment options. The offering identifies administrative providers and networks that offer competitively priced access to ETFs in 401(k) accounts.

United Capital Financial Advisers, Inc. (UCFA), partnered with FundQuest to build a customized suite of technology-based sales and productivity tools, back-office operations, portfolio accounting services, best-of-breed investments, and transition support teams.

Pershing Advisor Solutions announced that its RIA customers now have access to a broader array of fixed-income investment choices, offered through BondWave Advisors’ Program Portfolios solution. 

Charles Schwab released a report outlining best practices for planning, selecting, and implementing customer relationship management (CRM) systems for independent investment advisers. The report, “Getting the Most out of Your CRM Investment,” is available exclusively to Charles Schwab’s adviser clients. 

Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM) teamed up with Morningstar Advisor Workstation to launch a retirement plan analysis tool to help financial advisers determine the right fund line-ups for retirement plans. 

Principal Financial Group unveiled resources for advisers to tap into the retirement income market. Principal Retirement Income Edge offers education, tools, and other resources to help financial professionals meet client needs and grow their retirement income planning business.

Thrive Income Distribution System, LLC, in partnership with the Retirement Income Solutions Enterprise (RISE), has launched a turnkey planning and selling system designed to help advisers grow a profitable retirement income advice practice.

JennisonDryden launched a Web site connecting investment analysts with attribution reports, commentaries, profiles, and fact sheets for the fund family. The information provided is designed to help broker/dealers, gatekeepers, and other licensed financial professionals perform due diligence.

Matrix Financial Solutions, Inc. , launched its Matrix U program, an education program that provides tools and resources for advisers to compete and grow their retirement plan business in an open-architecture environment.

Retirement Learning Center released the “Retirement Resource Guide: Essential ERISA Education & Best Practices for Financial Advisors.”

Diversified Investment Advisors, Inc., introduced the Managed DB Financial Advisor Resource Guide to assist retirement plan advisers in their efforts to meet the retirement program needs of defined benefit plan sponsors.

Pershing introduced NetX360, an open-architecture technology platform that provides Pershing’s customers with a single, integrated platform to manage brokerage and advisory businesses. Pershing also added more than 30 solution providers to its ValueAlliance program. ValueAlliance is available to introducing broker/dealer firms and their investment professionals through Pershing and to RIAs via Pershing’s affiliate, Pershing Advisor Solutions.

The Income Annuity Training Guide from the Principal Financial Group helps financial professionals understand how to offer income annuities as part of a retirement income strategy.

Charles Schwab announced a series of performance management tools for independent investment advisers, available through its Human Capital offering. The expanded resources include best practices and ready-to-use tools and templates across five key areas of human resources management, including setting employee goals and objectives, employee performance management, employee career path development, staff motivation and leadership, and firm work environment. 

INVESTMENT BENCHMARKING

Morningstar, Inc., will offer ratings and in-depth research reports for target-date fund series. Based on the aggregate scores of five components (with 100 points being the maximum), each target-date fund series earns one of five ratings, updated annually.

Russell Investments expanded the availability of real-time index data on russell.com to include eight global benchmarks. The live data feed allows investors to keep close watch on eight global market segments: large cap, small cap, ex-U.S. large cap, ex-U.S. small cap, as well as the value and growth style indexes reflecting the ex-U.S. small-cap and large-cap segments. 

Standard & Poor’s launched risk-controlled versions of its S&P 500 and S&P/ASX 200 indexes for investors looking to gain exposure to the U.S. and Australian markets while limiting their risk. The S&P 500 Risk Control 10% Index and the S&P/ASX 200 Risk Control 15% Index track the return of a strategy that adjusts the exposure to each underlying index to control the level of risk.

Dow Jones Indexes launched the Dow Jones U.S. Economic Stimulus Index, which measures the performance of leading U.S. companies drawn from industries that are expected to receive stimulus dollars from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

FTSE Group, a global index provider, has launched capital investment tools to help investors identify and gain exposure to the environmental technology sector. Seven equity indices that use the new environmental markets classification also have been added to the FTSE Environmental Opportunities Index Series. 

INVESTMENTS

Charles Schwab Investment Management announced changes to its target-date mutual funds, including expense ratios by an estimated 13 to 23 basis points and upping the fixed-income exposure beginning 10 years from the target date. It also extended the glide path for an additional five years.

Van Kampen Funds launched a series of six equity mutual funds advised by Van Kampen Asset Management and subadvised by O’Shaughnessy Asset Management (OSAM).

Victory Capital Management has launched three collective trust funds, bringing its domestic and international capabilities to 11 strategies. The funds, which will be advised by Victory, are the KeyBank N.A. EB Large Cap Growth, KeyBank N.A. EB Mid Cap Value, and the KeyBank N.A. EB International Large Cap Core Fund.

Putnam Investments launched two funds that, collectively, invest across the full spectrum of securities of leveraged companies. Putnam Capital Spectrum Fund (Class A: PVSAX) pursues total return by investing in a variety of securities, and Putnam Equity Spectrum Fund (Class A: PYSAX) seeks capital appreciation through investments in equity securities.

American United Life Insurance Company (AUL) teamed up with American Century Investment Services, Inc., to offer LIVESTRONG Portfolios, a series of target-date funds, to AUL Retirement Services clients.

Great-West Retirement Services introduced the Maxim Lifetime Asset Allocation Series, providing three glide paths, third-party consultation, 20 investment managers, 28 underlying funds, and a blend of active and passive investment management.

Payden & Rygel has announced a reduction in expenses for the Payden/Wilshire Longevity Funds, its target-date fund series.

Franklin Templeton Investments announced the introduction of the Mutual International Fund, which seeks capital appreciation, with income as a secondary goal. It will focus primarily on undervalued securities of large and mid-capitalization companies investing primarily in Europe and developed Asia.

Federated Investors, Inc. , will acquire certain assets managed by Touchstone Advisors, Inc. Two Federated mutual funds will acquire approximately $233 million in assets from the Touchstone Value Opportunities Fund and Touchstone Diversified Small Cap Value Fund.

MetLife Advisers (MLA) is partnering with Wilshire Funds Management for the MetLife Asset Allocation Program portfolios of Met Investors Series Trust, available primarily through MetLife Investors deferred variable annuities. MAAP comprises five risk-based asset allocation portfolios from which MetLife Investors clients can choose.

ING Life Companies relaunched its corporate variable universal life (VUL) insurance product, issued by Security Life of Denver Insurance Company, with enhanced pricing. The ING Corporate VUL is designed to generate a strong early-surrender value.

John Hancock launched the A-share annuity AnnuityNote, featuring one underlying diversified portfolio, a lifetime income benefit, and an all-in expense of 1.74%. After a five-year hold, 5% guaranteed lifetime income is based on the higher of the total amount invested or the fifth contact anniversary value.