Retirement Industry People Moves 1/12/24

NFP names Greene president of benefits unit; Standard Hires Schaefer for West Coast regional VP for retirement plans; CFP Board appoints Boersen as chair; and more.

Tony Greene

NFP Names Greene President of Benefits Unit

Insurance company, benefits consultant, wealth manager and retirement plan adviser NFP Corp. promoted Tony Greene to president of the company’s executive benefits division on January 1, the company announced.

Greene will be responsible for driving growth for the division by designing and implementing programs that help organizations attract and retain top talent, according to a spokesperson.

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Greene, who succeeds Joe Carpenter, now reports to Ed O’Malley, an executive vice president and NFP’s head of insurance brokerage and consulting.

“Tony’s experience, leadership and relationships within NFP and across the industry make him the ideal person to lead our executive benefits division,” O’Malley said in a statement. “Tony has been instrumental in driving the growth of this business, cultivating integrated sales and expanding awareness of how executive benefits programs can be game-changing for organizations. We are excited to see his impact on the division’s next phase of growth.”

The Standard Hires Schaefer as Regional VP for Retirement Plans

Stephen Schaefer

The Standard announced that Stephen Schaefer was hired as regional vice president for retirement plans. He will work with advisers and third-party administrators in California and Nevada.

Schaefer has more than 15 years of experience in the retirement plan and financial industry. He held previous roles as a regional vice president, senior plan consultant, financial adviser and key account manager.

“We’re excited to welcome Stephen to the team,” Brody Geist, divisional vice president of retirement plans at The Standard, said in a statement. “His in-depth knowledge of the business and deep commitment to exceptional service for his advisor partners and customers align strongly with our values. Stephen is a great fit and I’m excited for both him and The Standard.”

CFP Board Appoints Boersen as Chair

Matt Boersen

The CFP Board announced that Matt Boersen was appointed to chair its board of directors, leading the CFP Board of Standards and CFP Board Center for Financial Planning.

Boersen is responsible for leading the professional body that certifies nearly 100,000 financial planning professionals across the U.S, according to the press release.

“Guiding CFP Board is a profound privilege,” said Boersen. “In the evolving economy, ensuring public access to ethical, competent financial planning is crucial. We must reach out to younger generations to build a diverse financial planning workforce. I look forward to collaborating with CFP Board’s leadership and CFP professionals nationwide to expand this talent pipeline.”

Boersen was elected by his board of director peers in 2022 to serve as 2023 board chair-elect.

Carter Joins Sanctuary Wealth From Merrill Lynch

Rachel Carter

Sanctuary Wealth announced Rachel Carter as a senior retirement benefits consultant working exclusively with corporate retirement plans, joining from Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, where she had been since 2014.

Serving as a senior retirement benefits consultant at Merill Lynch, Carter partnered with non-designated advisers to manage 401(k), defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans. She provided advisory services for corporate retirement plans, including investment advice and benchmarking, fiduciary consulting, participant advice and engagement, and financial wellness education.

Carter specializes in supporting plans often neglected or in need of an overhaul. She has been named the 2023 and 2024 National Association of Plan Advisors’ Top Plan Advisors Under 40 and is looking to become more involved in advocacy with the American Retirement Association

“Retirement plans to me aren’t about finance, but about people’s lives,” Carter said in a statement. “In Sanctuary, I have found a partner who understands my drive to improve the access to high quality retirement planning and consultation services for my clients and their employees in Eastern North Carolina.”

NewEdge Wealth Adds Veteran Municipal Bond Manager McIntyre to Investment Team

Kevin McIntyre

NewEdge Wealth LLC, a registered investment adviser specializing in servicing the needs of ultra-high-net-worth families, family offices and institutional clients, has appointed Kevin McIntyre as principal and municipal bond portfolio manager.

McIntyre is responsible for the design, construction and implementation of fixed-income and municipal bond strategies across NewEdge Wealth. In addition, he will work closely with advisers to provide custom fixed-income solutions and investment insights.

“Kevin is a remarkable addition to our team,” Cameron Dawson, NewEdge Wealth’s CIO, said in a statement. “His depth of knowledge and expertise in municipal bond portfolio management, coupled with the ability to foster trusted relationships, strongly aligns with our commitment to delivering top-tier investment solutions for our clients.”

With nearly 30 years of experience in municipal bond portfolio management, McIntyre also focuses on separately managed accounts. He served as a senior municipal portfolio manager and executive director at UBS Asset Management before joining NewEdge Wealth.

Lincoln Financial Hires Houston Sales Head  

Insurance company Lincoln Financial Distributors Inc. named Nick Verbugt as a regional sales director, reporting to divisional sales manager Vince Rainforth, a spokesperson confirmed.

Previously director of retirement plan consulting at Houston-based Strategic Retirement Partners, Verbugt is responsible for sales coverage in the Houston area.  

IRS Addresses Emergency Savings Accounts, Calls for Comment

The notice calls for stakeholders to recommend appropriate enforcement actions to prevent the gaming of employer matches on ESAs.

The IRS issued initial guidance on pension-linked emergency savings accounts as provided for in the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 and active as of 2024.

The guidance is not comprehensive and focuses on the anti-abuse and manipulation methods a sponsor can adopt to prevent participants from contributing to a PLESA solely for the purpose of gaining an employee match into their retirement account before withdrawing their own contributions.

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Inspired in part by the COVID-19 pandemic and people’s need for emergency savings, SECURE 2.0 provided for PLESAs, sometimes called sidecar accounts, that are tied to a defined contribution plan but have more flexible withdrawal rules. If a sponsor elects to create such an account, it must permit its participants to withdraw from the account at least once per month, and such withdrawal does not bring a 10% penalty.

A PLESA is a Roth account, and contributions to it must cease when its balance reaches $2,500, though appreciation on the assets therein may carry the balance over $2,500. The feature is not available to highly-compensated employees, those making more than $155,000 for 2024.

The IRS notice pointed out that if an employer offers a match, then participant contributions to the PLESA also trigger a match to the retirement account. This created some concerns that some participants would abuse this structure.

The notice explained that sponsors are not required to check against abuse of this kind but are permitted to do so. The IRS laid this out rather explicitly in the guidance, writing: “A plan sponsor may consider a participant as not manipulating the matching contribution rules if the participant made a $2,500 contribution in one year, received the matching contribution on such amount, and then took $2,500 in distributions that year and repeated that pattern in subsequent years.”

The IRS listed potential enforcement techniques that the IRS deems unreasonable and not allowed:

  • Sponsors may not forfeit a matching contribution already made to a retirement account on the basis of a previous ESA participant contribution;
  • Sponsors may not suspend the ability of a participant to contribute to the PLESA on their own; and
  • Sponsors may not suspend matching contributions made in relation to participant contributions to their retirement account.

The IRS noted that current law permits plans to limit matches made in relation to PLESA contributions as a way to mitigate abuse. Beyond that, the IRS did not list reasonable measures that sponsors could take, instead soliciting public comment on the matter.

The IRS will accept those comments suggesting reasonable methods of limiting PLESA abuse until April 5.

When making suggestions, the IRS encourages commenters to keep the following in mind: “A reasonable anti-abuse procedure is one that balances the interests of participants in using the PLESA for its intended purpose with the interests of plan sponsors in preventing manipulation of the plan’s matching contribution rules.”

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