AllianceBernstein Gives Plans Fund Management Flexibility

According to a press release, the firm said these target date portfolios give plans the operational and reporting simplicity of a pre-packaged investment strategy, but also allow the flexibility to choose an actively/passively managed combination.

Each target-date retirement portfolio in the series is a daily-priced, separate account that invests in a set of collective investment trusts that represent the component asset classes.

AllianceBernstein invests daily cash flows and manages the active components of the target date portfolios; Northern Trust Global Investments sub-advises all of the passive components of the portfolio. State Street Corporation serves as the custodian and provides daily valuation of the portfolios.

“The ability to add other managers to the mix is important to plan sponsors,” said Seth Masters, AllianceBernstein’s Chief Investment Officer for Blend Strategies, said in the press release. He added that many plans would “rather not jump into a potentially complicated multi-manager target-date structure on day one.”

Plan sponsors can add other investment managers or modify the asset allocation, but additional fees may apply, according to the company.