Tactical Allocation Group Hires Sales Director

Tactical Allocation Group LLC (TAG) appointed Paul C. Wharf regional managing director and continued its expansion with a new office in Chicago.

In his new position, Wharf will manage business development in the Eastern region, which includes approximately half of TAG’s current portfolio assets. He also will work to develop new business relationships for the firm on a national level.  

Wharf has more than 22 years of financial services experience at institutions such as RBS/Citizens, AllianceBernstein and Fidelity Investments. He has raised more than $12 billion and achieved top producer and chairman’s awards. At RBS/Citizens Wharf managed the firm’s fee-based platform, where he helped to increase assets from $300 million to more than $1.6 billion within two years.  

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TAG, a registered investment adviser with more than $1.5 billion in assets, has one of the longest track records in global tactical asset allocation and champions this approach through the exclusive use of exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The company has been a trailblazer in this industry from its Detroit ? Michigan headquarters.  

“We’re proud of our Midwest roots,” said James F. Peters, Jr., TAG’s chief executive, “and actually, it helps our investment process, as we stay far away from the ‘groupthink’ of Wall Street and stick to our knitting with thorough, unbiased analysis of the market.” 

Charles Schwab, Envestnet, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, RBC, UBS and Wells Fargo have opened their distribution channels to TAG’s asset management portfolios.  

“Investors are looking for a different solution that offers transparency, cost controls and overall performance,” Peters said. “We are excited to have Paul Wharf join TAG and have enjoyed working with him for the last couple of years while he was at RBS/Citizens. We witnessed his extraordinary commitment and understanding of the benefits of our tactical investment strategy.”  

TAG’s Chicago office will provide a base from which it can continue to build the sales part of its organization. “We look forward to working more closely with our distribution partners given the investment in our sales organization,” said Gene Katz, officer of chief development. “It’s exciting that TAG operates at the crossroads of our industry’s two great growth stories: tactical asset management and ETFs.” 

 

Pensions See Near-Record Funding Deficit in June

Plunging discount rates drove up pension liabilities in June, swamping asset improvement and capping a bad second quarter. 

Milliman’s  Pension Funding Index, which consists of 100 of the nation’s largest defined benefit pension plans found that corporate pensions in June experienced a $57 billion decrease in funded status based on a $77 billion increase in the pension benefit obligation (PBO) and a $20 billion increase in asset value. The $57 billion decrease in funded status pairs with the combined April and May decreases of $129 billion, increasing the funding deficit by $186 billion during the second quarter.

“With the help of the lowest discount rate in the 12-year history of our study, corporate pensions last month saw their funding deficit increase to a near-record $415 billion,” said John Ehrhardt, co-author of the Milliman Pension Funding Study. “This is the second worst deficit we’ve seen.”

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In June, the discount rate used to calculate pension liabilities fell from 4.56% to 4.32%, pushing up the PBO to $1.698 trillion at the end of the month. The overall asset value for these 100 pensions increased from $1.263 trillion to $1.283 trillion.

Looking forward, if these 100 pensions were to achieve their expected 7.8% median asset return and if the current discount rate of 4.32% were to be maintained throughout 2012 and 2013, these pensions would improve the pension funded ratio from 75.6% to 77.4% by the end of 2012 and to 82.0% by the end of 2013.

The results of the Milliman 100 Pension Funding Index were based on the actual pension plan accounting information disclosed in the footnotes to the companies’ annual reports for the preceding fiscal year and for previous fiscal years.

To view the study, click here.

 

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