Deals & People October 8, 2021

Retirement Industry People Moves

Impax appoints Ed Farrington as head of distribution for North America; Prudential forms new Prudential Retirement Strategies business; Northern Trust appoints Gary Paulin as head of global strategic solutions; and more.

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Art by Subin Yang

Impax Appoints Ed Farrington as Head of Distribution for North America

Impax Asset Management and investment adviser to the Pax World Funds announced the appointment of Ed Farrington to the newly created role of head of distribution for North America.

Farrington will be responsible for leading Impax’s North American distribution efforts, working with the leadership of the institutional and intermediary sales and marketing teams and in coordination with the global client services and business development team.

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The appointment was effective September 30, 2021. Farrington will join Impax’s executive committee and reports to Joe Keefe, Impax Asset Management North American president.

Farrington is a senior distribution leader with over 20 years of experience in the investment management industry. He has extensive knowledge in all distribution channels, including institutional, intermediary, consultant relations and retirement. He joins Impax from Natixis Investment Managers, where most recently he was an executive vice president and led institutional and retirement business development and consultant relations. For the past several years, he has also held a leadership role on firmwide environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts on behalf of Natixis and its subsidiaries.

The appointment follows the recent addition to Impax’s executive committee of Cath Bremmer as chief commercial officer and the appointment of Christine Cappabianca as portfolio manager of the firm’s systematic strategies.

Prudential Financial Aligns Individual and Institutional Retirement Capabilities to Form New Prudential Retirement Strategies Business

Prudential Financial Inc. announced the creation of Prudential Retirement Strategies, a new U.S. business that will serve the retirement needs of both individual and institutional customers.

This new business, to be led by Dylan Tyson, Prudential Retirement Strategies president, will combine the company’s individual annuities business and retirement institutional investment products, which includes pension risk transfer and international reinsurance, among others. The move positions Prudential to protect critical financial outcomes for individuals and institutions.

“This new structure brings together market-leading talent and capabilities to focus on a singular mission of solving the retirement needs of individual and institutional customers across the U.S.,” says Caroline Feeney, U.S. insurance and retirement businesses CEO.

Yanela Frias, previously president of Prudential Retirement, will become president of Prudential’s group insurance business.

“The group insurance business remains an important part of Prudential’s purpose and mission.” Feeney says. “Yanela is a proven leader whose experience with workplace customers will ensure that we remain well-positioned to serve and anticipate the needs of our partners and customers, and to grow the business.”

Frias also retains responsibility for Prudential’s full-service retirement plan recordkeeping and administration business until its sale to Empower Retirement closes, which is expected in the first quarter of 2022, pending customary regulatory approvals.

Group insurance president Jamie Kalamarides will be leaving Prudential after the transition of his responsibilities to Frias.

Northern Trust Appoints Gary Paulin as Head of Global Strategic Solutions

Northern Trust has appointed Gary Paulin as head of global strategic solutions for its asset servicing business.

In this newly created position, Paulin, who is based in London, will lead the development and design of innovative solutions that will enable clients to access and benefit from the full range of Northern Trust’s global capabilities. Paulin reports to Pete Cherecwich, Northern Trust corporate and institutional services president.

The appointment supports Northern Trust Whole Office—the strategy bringing open architecture multi-asset class solutions to institutional market participants across the entire investment lifecycle.

Paulin assumes the role having previously been global head of Northern Trust’s outsourced trading business. He has over 20 years of experience within the financial services industry, having joined Northern Trust in 2016 after the bank’s acquisition of Aviate Global LLP, an institutional equity brokerage firm co-founded by Paulin.

Accenture Acquires Advoco, Scaling Capabilities for Intelligent Asset Management Solutions

Accenture has acquired Advoco, one of the largest systems integrators for Infor EAM, a leading software-as-a-service suite for enterprise asset management (EAM). The acquisition expands Accenture’s capabilities to help clients in the consumer goods and services, industrial, life sciences, transit and other industries make their operations and supply chains safer, more sustainable, productive and cost-efficient. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Advoco’s mission is to form trusted adviser partnerships with clients across industries. It specializes in configuring and integrating Infor EAM software with companies’ existing enterprise and operational systems, and EAM training programs. The solutions and services Advoco provide are designed to help clients enhance the reliability and extend the overall lifecycle of their critical assets.

Founded in 2002, Advoco has been repeatedly named Infor EAM partner of the year. Most of its over 100 asset management professionals are based in Greenville, SC, close to the Infor EAM product development team. Accenture plans to establish Advoco’s Greenville office as a center of excellence for Infor EAM delivery, industry use cases and intelligent asset management.

The entire Advoco team joins Accenture’s Industry X group in the U.S., strengthening its suite of services for digitizing clients’ engineering and maintenance functions, factory floors and plant operations.

“Many of our clients are looking to leverage Infor EAM when embedding more intelligence in their asset management to drive the performance of their most critical assets,” says Nigel Stacey, Accenture Industry X global lead. “Advoco is highly respected for its talent, expertise and training program in this space. Together, we will bring Infor EAM capabilities to clients at scale to take advantage of a growing market opportunity.”

Prime Capital Investment Advisors Recapitalizes as Adviser Owned

Prime Capital Investment Advisors (PCIA) announced that it has recapitalized, becoming a predominantly adviser-owned firm. On October 1, the company completed its offering welcoming 88 new advisers to join four founding advisers as owners. In total, advisers own over 65% of the equity in PCIA and 98% accepted the ownership offer.

Since the firm’s launch as PCIA in 2017, the company has always had a goal to become an adviser-owned and led organization. The leadership team knows that this unique business model, with alignment between investors and advisers, will prove beneficial to all its stakeholders—clients, advisers, employees, investors and other business partners.

Moving forward, PCIA will continue to incorporate broad equity ownership opportunities for its people. Every adviser will have a path towards ownership and equity will be a critical tool in adviser recruiting as well as acquisition discussions.

“By providing our advisers with meaningful equity, we are igniting a fire in them to think and act like owners,” says Glenn Spencer, PCIA CEO. “The level of commitment and the standards of excellence people set as owners is simply higher. We know that our new owners will push us to even greater heights as an organization.”

Ameritas Acquires BlueStar Retirement Services

Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. announced the acquisition of BlueStar Retirement Services Inc., effective September 30, 2021. Terms of the agreement are not disclosed.

Founded in 1991, BlueStar is a full-service recordkeeper and third-party administrator headquartered in Florida. BlueStar specializes in open architecture retirement plans built on a proprietary high-tech and high-service delivery model. In addition to traditional 401(k) plans, BlueStar is a prominent provider of multiple employer plans. They currently serve about 75,000 participants and administer over $4 billion in plan assets.

“This is an exciting time for the Ameritas retirement plans division,” says Jim Kais, Ameritas senior vice president and head of retirement plans. “Integrating BlueStar’s capabilities with our own will offer advisers a well-resourced service and technology enabled open-architecture platform. We’re deepening our expertise in specialty markets like the pooled plan marketplace. This is especially important as this market is seeing significant growth and few providers have robust experience or capabilities in this space.”

BlueStar will operate as a subsidiary of Ameritas Life Insurance Corp. The BlueStar and Ameritas sales and service teams will begin collaborating immediately to ensure existing customers experience no disruptions.

Karin van Baardwijk to be Appointed Chief Executive Officer of Robeco

Robeco has announced the appointment of Karin van Baardwijk as chief executive officer effective January 1, 2022.

Van Baardwijk, currently deputy CEO and chief operating officer of Robeco, will succeed Gilbert Van Hassel, who has served as Robeco’s CEO since September 2016. Van Baardwijk joined Robeco in 2006 and has held various positions ranging from head of operational risk management to chief information officer. Having been part of Robeco’s executive committee since 2015, Van Baardwijk has played an important role in developing and executing Robeco’s corporate strategy for 2021 to 2025 and has been responsible for leading several successful transitions.

Van Hassel will stay on as CEO until December 31, 2021, in order to ensure a smooth handover, after which he will relocate back to the United States where he will assume a senior role for ORIX Group based in New York.

NFP Introduces Pamela Wheeler as New Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer

NFP announced Pamela Wheeler has joined the company as senior vice president, chief diversity and inclusion officer. Reporting to Ginnette Quesada-Kunkel, chief human resources officer, and working closely with leaders across the organization, Wheeler will be responsible for enhancing NFP’s diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging (DEIB) strategy and leading initiatives to advance the company’s goals within the organization and in communities around the world. Wheeler will also serve on NFP’s executive management committee.

“I’m excited to join NFP and have the opportunity to be part of an organization that celebrates diversity, promotes inclusion and provides opportunities for everyone to thrive,” says Wheeler. “Empowerment will be an essential element of everything we do and from the impressive foundation NFP has in place, I look forward to helping us become the model for fostering an environment where everyone at NFP feels they belong and is inspired to take us even further.”

For 15 years, Wheeler led the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, where she accelerated DEIB in several areas for the players and within the sports industry. Recently, she consulted with NFL operations on their DEIB efforts, as well as executive leadership development. She also served as assistant to the commissioner and director of business development for the Continental Basketball Association, and general counsel and marketing manager for Bob Woolf Associates/Arnold Communications. Since January 2018, Wheeler has been a lecturer in Columbia University’s Master of Science in Sports Management program. In all, Wheeler brings to NFP nearly three decades of experience improving DEIB outcomes for people within a variety of organizations.

Wheeler earned her Juris Doctor from Boston University, School of Law, a Bachelor of Arts degree from Dartmouth University and the Certified Diversity Professional designation from The Society for Diversity. She serves on the board of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, formerly on the foundation board of the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy and is a member of the trustee emeritus board of the Women’s Sports Foundation.

PCS Retirement Expands Implementation and Product Teams with Two New Leadership Hires

PCS Retirement announced the addition of Maura Lamb as director of implementation and Jim Lewis as product director.

In her role, Lamb is responsible for overseeing plan implementation operations including the enhancement of the concierge onboarding experience as the firm continues to grow. She brings a broad spectrum of industry experience, including 14 years of holding various leadership positions within compliance, plan design, billing, trading, change control, plan implementation and conversions at SS&C Technologies/DST Systems.

Lewis joins PCS Retirement with over 16 years of experience leading fin-tech product innovation teams, developing investment management platforms and pioneering growth-oriented solutions for financial advisers. With an extensive background developing investment management technology, Lewis is tasked with enhancing and extending the functionality of the Advisor Lab, PCS Retirement’s advanced all-in-one solution that helps advisers’ prospect, win, manage and retain retirement plan business.

“The addition of Maura and Jim to the PCS Retirement team comes at a great time,” says Mark Klein, PCS Retirement CEO. “While we’re extremely proud of our growth trajectory, it presents us with the challenge of finding the right talent that can help us nurture that growth and build upon our innovative adviser solutions.”

Products October 7, 2021

Investment Product and Service Launches

Victory Capital expands VictoryShares ETF offerings; RetireOne and Midland National launch portfolio retirement income guarantee solution; Transamerica broadens availability of stable value option; and more.

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Art by Jackson Epstein

Art by Jackson Epstein

 

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Victory Capital Expands VictoryShares ETF Offerings

Victory Capital Holdings Inc. announced that its wholly owned investment adviser, Victory Capital Management Inc., has launched three new active exchange traded funds (ETF) under the VictoryShares brand, all of which integrate environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria into their respective processes. The new strategies offer investors Victory Capital’s active capabilities in core plus fixed income, corporate bonds and U.S. mid-cap equities in an ETF wrapper.

“Active ETFs continue to gain traction with investors seeking to access managers who have proven successful in mutual funds and other investment vehicles,” says Mannik Dhillon, VictoryShares and Solutions president.

Two of the ETFs, VictoryShares ESG corporate bond ETF (UCRD) and VictoryShares ESG core plus bond ETF (UBND), are managed by USAA Investments, a Victory Capital investment franchise. The third ETF, VictoryShares THB mid-cap ESG ETF (MDCP), is managed by the Company’s THB Asset Management franchise.

“These new ETFs are distinct in that they combine our bond-by-bond fundamental analysis with our sophisticated, proprietary ESG scoring system,” said James Jackson, head of fixed income portfolio management for USAA Investments.

UCRD and UBND seek to provide investors with above-average income through yield-focused portfolios. UCRD offers exposure to primarily investment-grade corporate bonds and UBND offers exposure to intermediate-term bonds.

“MDCP invests in a focused, high-conviction portfolio of approximately 30 mid-cap stocks that our team believes represent high-quality, low-risk businesses with the potential to prudently grow shareholder equity over time,” said Christopher Cuesta, chief investment officer for THB Asset Management. “We are excited to bring our team’s long history of integrating ESG factors into our investment process to investors through an ETF vehicle.”

RetireOne and Midland National Launch Portfolio Retirement Income Guarantee

RetireOne and Midland National Life Insurance Company (Midland National) have announced the launch of a new, zero-commission contingent deferred annuity (CDA) called Constance. This stand-alone living benefit unbundles the annuity’s insurance component from its underlying investments. In doing so, Constance allows registered investment advisers (RIA) flexibility to wrap client brokerage accounts, individual retirement accounts (IRA) or Roth IRAs with this lifetime income protection.

“Historically, advisers have avoided annuities because they’ve been difficult to integrate into client portfolios,” says David Stone, RetireOne founder and CEO. “Through this innovative retirement solution, they can now integrate guaranteed income using institutional-priced funds and ETFs at the custodian of their choosing.”

Selected ETFs and mutual funds from BlackRock, Dimensional Fund Advisors, Franklin Templeton, Vanguard and other managers are available within Constance as investments for potential growth in addition to protected income, and many more are slated to be vetted and approved.

The firms say Constance is designed to act as a “personal pension” to transfer longevity risk to an insurance company. This also empowers advisers to help their clients navigate sequence of returns risk, return volatility risk and longevity risk, while providing guaranteed income for life.

RetireOne’s technology provides the infrastructure behind the development of Constance by consolidating data from insurance companies and custodians for ongoing servicing and administration. With Constance, advisers can help clients remain in control of their assets and tax treatment by keeping covered assets with the custodian in either qualified or non-qualified accounts. Unlike funding a traditional annuity by selling out of existing positions, advisers may cover client’s existing mutual fund or ETF investments with Constance, without enduring the impact of a capital gain tax event.

“By insuring part of a client’s portfolio with Constance, advisors can potentially increase their clients’ risk budgets, gain greater equity exposure, and possibly increase their spending power in retirement,” says Rob TeKolste, Sammons Independent Annuity Group president, a division of Midland National.

Constance is offered exclusively on the RetireOne platform.

Transamerica Expands Availability of Stable Value Option

Transamerica announced the availability of its flagship stable value option, the Transamerica Guaranteed Investment Option, on an investment-only basis. The Transamerica product is now available to almost any retirement plan provider. The option is designed to be compatible with virtually any type of employer-sponsored retirement plan.

The Transamerica Guaranteed Investment Option is a stable value product that guarantees principal and interest. The option’s objective is to provide maximum return consistent with a principal-protected product backed by the financial strength of the Transamerica Life Insurance Company general account.

“Financial advisers and plan sponsors have asked for a stable value solution that can fit any retirement plan provider’s needs. With the Transamerica Guaranteed Investment Option, we are providing that solution to the retirement marketplace as a whole,” says Bradie Barr, Transamerica Stable Value Solutions Inc. president. “This option offers safety through a full guarantee of principal and interest, supported by a portfolio of high-quality, fixed-income securities within the general account. In addition, this stable value option offers liquidity to participants, as they can withdraw or transfer funds daily at book value regardless of market conditions.”

A differentiating feature available with this product is a flexible contract holder termination option. In advance of the contract’s issuance, the plan sponsor may select the potential length of a book value termination period to align with their plan’s goals and objectives.

With this stable value option, all deposits are credited with the same interest rate daily. Crediting rates are established based on the prevailing interest rate environment at the time. The Transamerica guaranteed investment option is available to all qualified retirement plans with a minimum of $5 million in assets to transfer into the account.

Securian Financial and SageView Advisory Group Introduce Personalized Managed Account Solution

Securian Financial is expanding its retirement plan distribution relationship with SageView advisory group with the introduction of SageView Personalized Portfolios—an adviser managed account solution that maximizes personalization to manage risk and help employees of all ages reach retirement income goals.

SageView Personalized Portfolios securely leverage employee data to create an investment allocation unique to each employee. Using data already provided streamlines processes and keeps costs reasonable. Employees who want to provide additional data can do so to further personalize their allocation.

SageView works with each plan sponsor to develop an investment menu that addresses the unique needs of the company’s employee base while adhering to fiduciary best practices. From there, participants who enroll in SageView personalized portfolios receive customized asset allocations that align with their financial situations and retirement goals.

SageView partners with Stadion Money Management to ensure that participant portfolios are monitored continuously and remain suitable as finances and life circumstances change over time. All aspects of portfolio management are integrated with Securian Financial’s recordkeeping system, resulting in a seamless experience for SageView, employers and employees.

PGIM Investments Expands Alternative Investment Lineup with PGIM Wadhwani Fund

PGIM Investments has expanded its platform of alternative investment solutions with the launch of the PGIM Wadhwani systematic absolute return fund, a proprietary quantitative and systematic global macro strategy seeking long-term risk-adjusted total return. This is PGIM Investments’ first PGIM Wadhwani strategy offered as a U.S. mutual fund.

“Investors are facing a challenging market environment where stock market valuations are historically high and bond market yields are historically low. Alternative investment solutions like global macro strategies may offer a compelling way for investors to generate uncorrelated risk-adjusted returns to complement their traditional 60/40 portfolios,” says Stuart Parker, president and CEO of PGIM Investments.

The fund invests across global equities, fixed income and currencies­ either directly or by using derivatives, taking both long and short positions, to capture alpha opportunities and limit downside risk.

“With risk management integral to the way we construct portfolios, we employ an agile approach, dynamically tilting and timing our exposures and combining signals in a non-linear fashion to try to limit portfolio drawdowns,” explains Sushil Wadhwani, chief investment officer of PGIM Wadhwani and a named portfolio manager of the fund.

Wadhwani has 31 years of investment experience, which includes work in academia and the financial sector, as well as several years on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee.

Dimensional Unveils Expanded Separately Managed Accounts Offering

Dimensional Fund Advisors unveiled the firm’s expanded separately managed accounts (SMAs) offering, which broadens access to customized Dimensional investment solutions. Dimensional’s tech-enabled platform offers personalized investment options that previously were often available only for seven and eight-figure account minimums.

Discretionary accounts that allow investors to exclude select securities within broader strategies, SMAs have long been used by ultra-high-net-worth and institutional investors with unique holdings requirements. By lowering the typical separate account minimum from more than $20 million to $500,000, Dimensional is empowering financial professionals to offer flexible solutions to a broader set of individual investors.

The new SMA platform integrates hundreds of customization options for their clients, including preferences around tax management; environmental, social and governance characteristics; and industry and security exclusions. The offering is intended to help financial professionals implement tailored solutions within well-designed, highly diversified and cost-efficient portfolios.

The firm’s SMA solutions are based on Dimensional’s core investment strategies—which begin with systematic tilts toward sources of higher expected returns, rather than commercial indices that are often the starting point for direct-indexing products.

“The future of wealth management will be marked by continued personalization of investments and client service,” suggests Dimensional Co-CEO Dave Butler. “Our expanded SMA offering is a natural extension of Dimensional’s investment process delivered in a customizable vehicle, and it furthers our aim to offer more choice in how financial professionals serve their clients.”

Riskalyze and Allianz Life Form Strategic Alliance on Annuity Technology and Analytics

Riskalyze has announced a new partnership with Allianz Life Insurance Company of North America (Allianz Life).

As part of this relationship, Allianz Life will be featured in the Riskalyze partner store, and platform coverage of its index variable annuity (IVA) and fixed-index annuity (FIA) products will be enhanced with rich data updates on a regular basis. The Riskalyze partner store is where advisers can tap into the key materials, research and strategies from some of the industry’s leading firms. In addition, Allianz Life has purchased licenses for its retirement and risk management consultants across the country to utilize Riskalyze when working with financial professionals.

“We’re thrilled to establish this new partnership with Riskalyze to help demonstrate how Allianz Life products can help people manage risks to their retirement security,” says Corey Walther, president, Allianz Life Financial Services LLC. “With our annuity products available in the Riskalyze partner store, financial professionals will be better able to position and validate these products as an important risk-management component within a broader, more holistic financial plan.”

The relationship between Riskalyze and Allianz Life will help aid financial professionals in evaluating Allianz Life’s annuity offerings that can help mitigate market risk and ascertain allocation recommendations.

“Our partnership with Allianz Life is such an important part of empowering people to build their retirement security, and we’re excited to expand our work with them today,” adds Aaron Klein, founder and CEO at Riskalyze. “From the ability to access modern risk analytics and portfolio analysis, to every user of our platform getting enhanced coverage of these innovative Allianz Life products, this partnership is a win-win for both firms.”

PGIM Investments Expands ESG Line

PGIM Investments is expanding its commitment to ESG investing with the launch of the PGIM ESG Total Return Bond Fund, its first dedicated ESG strategy offered to U.S. investors. The new fund is an alternative but complementary offering to PGIM’s $60 billion PGIM Total Return Bond Fund.

The fund seeks total return by investing in a diversified portfolio of bonds across multiple fixed-income sectors, emphasizing issuers with stronger ESG characteristics and practices than traditional intermediate core-plus bond portfolios.

The fund is managed by an experienced team of PGIM Fixed Income portfolio managers including Gregory Peters, Robert Tipp, Michael Collins, Richard Piccirillo and Lindsay Rosner, averaging 27 years’ investment experience.

PGIM Fixed Income’s methodology begins with an exclusionary screen and then utilizes a proprietary scoring methodology to assign ESG impact ratings and construct the fund’s portfolio.

“As one of the largest fixed income fund providers, we recognize the increased demand from clients for optionality between traditional and ESG investment strategies,” says Stuart Parker, president and CEO of PGIM Investments. “With this launch, we are pleased to offer our clients the ability to express their values and beliefs through their investments, while continuing to deliver on the rigorous investment standards PGIM Fixed Income is known for.”

ProShares Launches Three New Thematic ETFs

ProShares has announced the launch of three new thematic ETFs, including the ProShares S&P Kensho Smart Factories ETF (MAKX), the ProShares Big Data Refiners ETF (DAT) and the ProShares S&P Kensho Cleantech ETF (CTEX).

According to the firm, each ETF is designed to offer investors exposure to a rapidly changing industry, from the automation of manufacturing, to enhanced analytics and big data processing, to powering the transition to clean energy.

Nuveen Enhances Real Assets Platform

Nuveen enhancing its real assets platform by bringing together its private real asset capabilities and launching two new business units, with the goal of creating a more streamlined approach as investors seek to increase exposure to real assets and alternatives.

The newly structured platform will consist of capabilities in real estate, farmland, infrastructure, timberland, agribusiness and commodities. These will be organized under three core pillars, including two newly launched units: Nuveen Natural Capital and Nuveen Infrastructure. These two pillars will sit alongside Nuveen’s real estate line and will be enhanced by targeted and complementary capabilities across Nuveen’s private impact and commodities lines.

“The strengthening of the platform represents the next step in our evolution in becoming the leading land-based asset manager, investing in a sustainable way for the enduring benefit of our clients and society,” says Nuveen CEO of Real Assets Mike Sales.

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