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The ERISA attorneys at Ivins, Phillips and Barker recommend these four topics for your next investment committee meeting agenda:1. Fees. This is still the No. 1 topic of discussion, as lawsuits against plan fiduciaries (including the $30 million settlement against International Paper) continue to...
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LPL Financial and Millennium Trust have announced the integration of Millennium Trust's Automatic Rollover Solution to its Worksite Financial Solutions retirement planning services platform. LPL’s Worksite Financial Solutions provides a complete end-to-end solution for retirement plan sponsors and...
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Many people predict that mobile technology will change the DC industry, but very few have specific, breakthrough ideas. Leave it to UCLA professor Shlomo Benartzi — who’s credited along with University of Chicago professor Richard Thaler for bringing behavioral finance theories to DC plans and...
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The ERISA consultants at the Columbia Management Retirement Learning Center Resource Desk regularly receive calls from financial advisors on a broad array of technical topics related to IRAs and qualified retirement plans. A recent call with a financial advisor in Indiana is representative of a...
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As we noted last week, we’ve added a new voting tool to the NAPA Net portal so you can help us choose topics for future NAPA webinars. After two weeks, here are the current “standings” in the poll:1. Building your brand via thought leadership2. Expanding your centers of influence3. Retaining plan...
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Seeking to resolve an issue that one legal expert claims has been festering for 20 years, the Solicitor General has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up a stock drop case in hopes of resolving a judicial split. In its September 2012 Fifth Third Bancorp ruling, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of...
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Drinker Biddle’s Oct. 1 webcast, “Surviving DOL Investigations of Plans,” raised so many questions that the firm’s employee benefits group will present a follow-up webcast, “Surviving DOL Investigations of Plans: Part II,” to address those questions and build upon the content from the original...
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When EBRI was founded 35 years ago, I was about six months into a job doing pension accountings for a large Midwestern bank. At the time, I didn’t realize I’d still be working with those kinds of issues in 2013 — in fairness, like most recent college graduates, I wasn’t really thinking about...
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Last week’s top five most-read posts on NAPA Net reflected keen interest in the comparison of advisor salaries to other types of financial professionals, NAPA’s updated DC provider list, Morningstar’s new advisor rating system, a new video on Liability Driven Investments and why 401(k) jargon may...
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With greater scrutiny by the DOL and more litigation resulting in settlements and judgments against plan sponsors and providers, including the recent International Paper case, it’s critical that plan advisors understand how to protect and inform their plan sponsor committees. In turn, many plans...
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SPX Corp. based in Charlotte, NC, has entered into an annuity buyout contract with MassMutual covering about 16,000 retirees. SPX plans to offer a lump-sum option to 7,500 vested former employees. MassMutual is expected to take over about $625 million in pension payments in April 2014. The pension...
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On Nov. 22, 2013, the SEC's Investment Advisory Committee adopted the following recommendations that were proposed by the committee’s Investor-as-Purchaser Subcommittee.Registered Investment Advisor ExamsThe SEC should ask Congress to pass legislation allowing the SEC to assess a fee on registered...
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There are two significant trends in DC investing: the use of traditional glidepath strategies (reducing equity as an investor ages) and the use of mostly cap-weighted passive money management. Both of these movements are challenged in a recent article in The Journal of Retirement. “We believe that...
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If you had to skip NAPA’s inaugural DC Fly-in Forum last September because of a scheduling conflict — or if you want to make sure you return for the second Fly-in — you can now put Sept. 30-Oct. 1 on your 2014 calendar. Those are the just-released dates for next year’s Fly-in. The event will be...
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Pershing announced last week that it is integrating several popular third-party technology applications into its NetX360 platform for advisors. NetX360 will now offer portfolio management and rebalancing solutions from Blaze Portfolio and Portfolio Pathway, as well as Laser App forms management and...
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It’s becoming increasingly common for older workers to move from a career job to a lower-paying “bridge” job prior to retirement, according to a University of Michigan Retirement Research Center study. A big reason for the increase in this kind of “partial retirement”: higher unemployment....
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Every six months we update our list of DC providers (record keepers and DCIO firms) and broker dealers. Though there have not been any major shifts, there are more subtle changes that might indicate the direction of the providers specifically and the market in general. Here are some comments on...
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Jim Phillips, a plan advisor in Massachusetts and contributor to The Wall Street Journal’s Marketwatch site, calls the DC industry on the carpet for the confusing jargon we use when dealing with plan participants and sponsors. And he’s not talking about Monte Carlo simulations or hedging tail risk...
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An annual retirement survey by BlackRock polls plan sponsors about their beliefs, attitudes and concerns in three major areas of opportunity for tapping the full potential of DC plans, clarifying key retirement concerns and driving better savings behavior. The 2013 survey uncovered three insights...
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A new study from the Insured Retirement Institute (IRI) looks at the changing retirement strategies of same-gender couples in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Windsor decision earlier this year. That decision led to the IRS and DOL adopting a uniform definition of “spouse” that includes legally...
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ERISA sets a high bar for fiduciary decision-making, essentially requiring plan fiduciaries to act as prudent experts might be expected to act — not just a prudent person. Similarly, when appointing an employee or officer to a plan committee, there are three critical areas of inquiry, FPG’s Charles...
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TDFs are all the rage in DC plans, becoming the go-to QDIA and gathering assets at an increasing rate. But does the “one size fits all” investment strategy for everyone born within five years of each other make sense, regardless of their salary, account balance or access to outside assets? On the...
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