Product & Service Launches – 12/18/2025

IncomeConductor Updates Annuity Planning With Advanced Modeling

IncomeConductor LLC, a retirement income planning platform for financial advisers, announced a major update to better assist advisers who incorporate annuities into comprehensive retirement income plans.

The updates are intended to help advisers build strategies based on existing annuity contracts and potential future purchases. On the IncomeConductor platform, advisers can now:

• Integrate existing annuity assets and income streams seamlessly into holistic retirement plans;
• Simulate future annuity purchases and compare multiple product options within complete client income strategies;
• Model lifetime income streams, period-certain guarantees and rider-based income options;
• Assign cost-of-living adjustments to any annuity income stream;
• Project growth rates specific to each annuity contract, separate from other portfolio segments;
• Model taxation of nonqualified annuities that compare exclusion ratios to “as needed” withdrawals;
• Incorporate qualified annuity balances into required minimum distribution calculations; and
• Illustrate how qualified annuity income streams may or may not meet RMDs required from all accounts.

“Annuities are a powerful income tool, but too often they’ve been modeled simplistically as static guarantees, not dynamic income streams,” said Sheryl O’Connor, IncomeConductor’s CEO and founder, in a statement. “With this release, advisers can plan with precision, confidence and complete integration, all within the IncomeConductor platform.”

American Life Expands Product Availability to New Hampshire

American Life & Security Corp., an annuity carrier, now offers its full suite of flexible retirement products to New Hampshire residents.

New Hampshire is the first state in New England to offer American Life products, including the MaxGrowth 10 Fixed Indexed Annuity, according to the announcement.

American Life is now approved in 26 states and the District of Columbia.

AllianceBernstein Launches AB US Equity ETF

AllianceBernstein Holding L.P. and AllianceBernstein L.P., a global investment management firm, announced on Monday the launch of AB US Equity ETF, an actively managed traded fund on the New York Stock Exchange. Citadel Securities is the lead market marker for the ETF, which has the ticker “XCHG.”

“XCHG, the latest addition to our expanding suite of active ETFs, was developed in collaboration with our Bernstein Private Wealth Management team,” said Noel Archard, AB’s global head of ETFs and portfolio solutions, in a statement.

XCHG’s investment objective is to seek long-term growth of capital by investing, under normal circumstances, at least 80% of its net assets in equity securities of U.S. companies.

XCHG joins AB’s growing U.S. lineup of 23 ETFs, which have more than $13 billion in assets under management, as of December 15. The firm had $865 billion in assets under management as of November 30.

Prudential Launches FlexGuard 2.0 with New Investment Allocation

Prudential Financial Inc. launched FlexGuard 2.0, its updated flagship retail registered index-linked annuity product lineup.

Updates include a flexible allocation feature, a simplified no-contract fee structure, expanded buffers and a broader set of index and exchange-traded fund investment crediting strategies.

“It builds on five years of market insights and customer and adviser feedback to deliver greater flexibility, usability and protection,” said Scott Gaul, Prudential’s head of individual retirement strategies, in a statement.

Prudential Financial is an active global investment manager with approximately $1.6 trillion in assets under management as of September 30. Prudential’s retirement strategies business provides more than $15 billion of protected income payments each year to more than 3 million participants.

Man Group Expands US Wealth Offering With 2 New ETFs

Global alternative investment manager Man Group PLC launched two exchange-traded funds, Man Active Emerging Markets ETF and Man Active Trend Enhanced ETF.

The actively managed funds, which listed on Nasdaq Wednesday with the tickers MEMA and MATE, respectively, were designed to provide mid-term to long-term capital growth.

MEMA will invest, under normal circumstances, at least 80% of its net assets, plus any borrowings for investment purposes, in equity and equity-related securities of emerging market issuers. The fund will identify stocks with prospects of long-term value creation often missed by short-term oriented investors and will objectively evaluate company fundamentals and intangibles. Its 130/30 strategy invests 130% of capital in stocks expected to rise and shorts 30% in stocks expected to fall, netting 100% market exposure.

Daniel Taylor and Ben Zhao are the portfolio managers primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of MEMA. They said in a statement that emerging markets equities are “exciting opportunity to diversity equity risk away from the U.S. and the ‘Magnificent Seven.’”

MATE has 100% exposure to two strategies: global developed and emerging market equity and fixed income, as well as U.S. equity securities, U.S. equity ETFs and/or futures contracts on U.S. equity indexes.

Russell Korgaonkar and Giuliana Bordigoni are the portfolio managers primarily responsible for the day-to-day management of MATE.