In the current market environment, safe assets simply do not pay what they once did, but that doesn’t mean annuities have become less attractive. In fact, on a relative basis, annuities currently make a lot of economic sense.
A district court in California has proven to be skeptical of claims suggesting that active management funds are categorically imprudent retirement plan investments; the ruling also defends the use of revenue sharing.
Allegations in the lawsuit against Barnabas Health closely parrot other proposed class action complaints filed in the past year against health care systems by the law firm Capozzi Adler.
Although collective investment trusts hold a fraction of the total assets in retirement plans, with ongoing changes in the broader intermediary landscape, they appear to be poised for continued growth.
Market volatility related to COVID-19 may have heightened the risk of misconduct in various areas that the SEC staff believes merit additional attention from advisers and compliance professionals.
The medical testing company is already facing scrutiny for its use of actively managed investments within its retirement plan; it is now the subject of a broader excessive fee lawsuit.
A registered representative of NEXT Financial Group is accused of manipulating key figures and data used to monitor sales of real estate investment trusts to certain client groups, allegedly rendering the monitoring efforts “meaningless.”
It is common to hear that private equity (PE) has been the best performing asset class in recent years for institutional investors, but a new academic analysis challenges that idea.
The lawsuit points to a variety of alleged fiduciary breaches related to the Oshkosh Corp.’s retirement plan’s investment and recordkeeping fees.
Knowledge about and connections to the collective investment trust marketplace can be a key selling point for retirement plan advisers in 2020 and beyond—especially when serving small and mid-sized clients.
Among the attractive but less-often-discussed features of collective investment trusts is the fact that the sponsoring trustee—a bank or trust company—must commit to acting in the best interest of unit holders.
Among other enhancements, clients can now add Fingage’s managed account solution for a small fee.
According to the firm, “Sensible Fees” funds will enable investors to pay a low index or ETF-like base fee—only seeing a higher active management fee when fund performance objectives exceed the benchmark.
According to the SEC, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney’s share class calculator had two operating errors that caused it not to provide the most beneficial share class to eligible customers; the firm was also accused of not consistently providing this benefit to certain eligible clients.
Fee compression hit recordkeepers first, then asset managers. Advisers are next, experts agree, but they can learn some important lessons from their service provider partners.
Retirement plans of all sizes are seeing their recordkeeping fee schedules questioned, especially when those fees are expressed as a percentage of assets.
The text of the decision highlights that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 provides that a court may permit a party to amend its pleadings “when justice so requires,” and absent special circumstances, such leave should be “freely given.”