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| Last Chance for Nominations |
| Last Week for Plan Sponsor of the Year Nominations |
| Is your company’s retirement plan run
exceptionally well? Is your pension plan well-funded and/or pursuing
interesting strategies (whether active or frozen)? Is your DC plan committee
focused on fulfilling fiduciary requirements and achieving successful outcomes
for participants? We are now accepting nominations for the 2015 PLANSPONSOR
Plan Sponsor of the Year awards. This is an excellent opportunity for you to
tell your story and share you successes with peers. We are looking for plans of
all types (pension, 401(k), 403(b), 457, public DC, etc) and of all sizes. You can nominate a plan, or yourself, here.Read more > |
| PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year |
| Has your plan been improved by the help of a
skilled professional? Has an adviser or consultant helped with DB plan funding
or plan maintenance? What about helping design a DC plan to improve focus on
fulfilling fiduciary requirements and achieving successful outcomes for
participants? If you know a superb retirement plan adviser you think is worthy
of the 2015 PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan of the Year awards, please nominate him
or her! Nominations can be made here.Read more > |
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| Benefit Briefs |
| Sponsor Focus on Retirement Plan Fees Continues |
| Recordkeeping fees continue to include some
element of revenue sharing for most defined contribution plans, according to
NEPC’s Defined Contribution Plan & Fee Survey. Recordkeeping fees for the
majority of workplace retirement plans are still calculated using pricing
models based on assets within the plan, according to NEPC. However, the setting
of recordkeeping fees based on a fixed-dollar amount per participant—which NEPC
says is widely acknowledged as the most transparent and fair approach—appears
to be gaining traction. Overall for 2014, the estimated median plan fee for
employers stood at 0.52%, or 52 cents for every $100 in fund assets—down slightly from 2013.Read more > |
| The University of Minnesota has added a third
retirement option to help faculty ease into retirement. According to the
Minnesota Daily, with the new “tenure trade” retirement policy, some faculty—in
exchange for their tenure status—will be able to gradually retire while working
part-time or completing any ongoing work, allowing them to leave the school
without abandoning any of their long-term projects or research.Read more > |
| Passive Investing May Not Optimize Participant Outcomes |
| Does choosing only low-cost, passive investments
for retirement plan fund menus optimize the outcomes for participants? Not
according to recently released research from American Funds. “We see plan
sponsors are really focused on passive management and think that’s a safe
fiduciary choice,” Mark Steburg, senior vice president in American Funds’
retirement plan services business, tells PLANSPONSOR. “But, plan sponsors are
also concerned about participant outcomes.” He contends the retirement plan
industry is not thinking enough about the how the right active managers can
really help participants maximize investment returns. In a comprehensive study,
American Funds sought to identify active manager traits associated with a track
record of outpacing indexes over long periods.Read more > |
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| Buyer's Market |
| Kidder Benefits Consultants will provide
Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) Section 3(16) plan-level,
discretionary fiduciary services to its clients, beginning immediately.Read more > |
| Abigail Johnson Takes Lead at Fidelity |
| Abigail P. Johnson, the granddaughter of
Fidelity’s founder, has agreed to accept the position of chief executive
officer (CEO) of FMR, LLC. As president and CEO, Johnson, who was named
president of the firm in 2012, “will continue to be responsible for executive
management of all the firm’s diversified businesses,” according to Fidelity.
Johnson takes the helm from her father, Edward C. Johnson 3d, who will remain
chairman of the firm and will provide strategic oversight.Read more > |
| Covariance Capital Management appointed Kevin
Nee as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Covariance Capital Management is a
wholly-owned subsidiary of TIAA-CREF that provides outsourced endowment
management services to educational, health care and other nonprofits.Read more > |
| MassMutual Reintroduces Small Employer 401(k) Solution |
| MassMutual Retirement Services is targeting
employers with less than $15 million in retirement plan assets with the
MassMutual Aviator 401(k) solution. MassMutual Aviator is designed to offer
small plans ease of administration; reduction of fees as assets increase;
educational tools and support to help employees save and prepare for
retirement; and an expanded selection of highly rated investment options.Read more > |
| Janus Capital Group Inc. has agreed to acquire
VS Holdings Inc., the parent company of institutionally-focused exchange-traded
fund (ETF) provider VelocityShares LLC. VelocityShares, launched in 2009,
specializes in funds that aim to deliver sophisticated volatility management.Read more > |
|
| Market Mirror |
| Starting the new week off on a bad note,
the Dow was down 223.03 points (1.35%) at 16,321.07, the NASDAQ tumbled 62.58
points (1.46%) to 4,213.66, and the S&P 500 31.39 points (1.65%) to finish
at 1,874.74. The Russell 2000 slipped 4.02 points (0.38%) to 1,049.30, and the
Wilshire 5000 fell 323.63 points (1.62%) to 19,652.02.
On the NYSE, 3.2 billion shares traded
with a 2 to 1 lead for decliners. On the NASDAQ, 2.7 billion shares changed
hands, with 1.3 declining issues for every advancing issue.
The bond markets were closed Monday for Columbus Day.
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|
| Rules & Regulators |
| Court Upholds Elimination of DC to DB Transfer Feature |
| The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that
eliminating retirement plan transfer provisions allowing employees to move
assets from a defined contribution (DC) plan to a defined benefit (DB) plan does
not violate the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (ERISA) anti-cutback
rules, which prohibits any amendment to an employee benefit plan that would
reduce a participant’s “accrued benefit.” Andersen
v. DHL Retirement Pension Plan came to the 9th Circuit on appeal from the
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, which also upheld
the employer’s right to eliminate the DC to DB transfer provision. In a
decision handed down in 2012, the district court noted that the Department of
Treasury has ultimate authority in determining overlapping provisions of
ERISA’s anti-cutback rule and the Internal Revenue Code, and has disseminated a
regulation that directly addresses the transfer right at the center of the
case. That regulation says plainly that “a plan may be amended to eliminate
provisions permitting the transfer of benefits between and among defined
contribution [DC] plans and defined benefit [DB] plans.”Read more > |
|
| Small Talk |
| ON
THIS DATE: In 1890,
future President Dwight D. Eisenhower was born near Abilene, Texas. In 1912, before a campaign speech in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Theodore Roosevelt, the presidential candidate for the
Progressive Party, was shot at close range by saloonkeeper John Schrank while
greeting the public in front of the Gilpatrick Hotel. In 1926, the book “Winnie-the-Pooh,” by A.A. Milne, made its
debut. In 1936, the first SSB
(Social Security Board) office opened in Austin, Texas. From this point, the
Board’s local office took over the assigning of Social Security Numbers. In 1943, the Radio Corporation of America
finalized the sale of the NBC Blue radio network. Edward J. Noble paid $8
million for the network that was renamed American Broadcasting Company. In 1947, U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck
Yeager became the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound. In 1957, “Wake Up Little Susie”
became the Everly Brothers’ first No. 1 hit. In 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis began when U.S. reconnaissance
aircrafts photographed Soviet construction of intermediate-range missile sites
in Cuba. In 1964, civil rights
leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his
nonviolent resistance to racial prejudice in America. At 35 years of age, he
was the youngest person ever to receive the award. In 2012, Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner jumped from a capsule
attached to a helium balloon approximately 24 miles above Earth and became the
first person to break the sound barrier without the protection or propulsion of
a vehicle.
TUESDAY
TRIVIA: Ailurophobia is the fear of cats.
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| TRIVIAL PURSUITS: What
name was Martin Luther King, Jr. given at birth?Read more > |
| Share the good news with a friend! Pass the Dash along – and tell your
friends/associates they can sign up for their own copy.Read more > |
| News from PLANSPONSOR.com
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