Pensions & Investments: DOL Names New ERISA Advisory Council Members, Chair
NEPC’s Bill Ryan was mentioned by Pensions & Investments for his appointment by the Department of Labor to the ERISA Advisory Council. Excerpts from the article are shown below. View the article on Pensions & Investments’ site here.
“The Department of Labor appointed five members to its ERISA Advisory Council…”
. . .
The council’s new appointees, who will each serve three-year terms, are:
- William E. Ryan III, head of defined contribution for investment consultant, NEPC
- Anusha Rasalingam, a partner at law firm Friedman & Anspach
- Charles B. Wolf, a retired shareholder of law firm Vedder Price who teaches employee benefits law at the University of Chicago Law School
- Regina T. Jefferson, a law professor at the Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law
- Kathleen McBride, an accredited investment fiduciary analyst, and founder and president of FiduciaryPath
Click here to continue reading the full Pensions & Investments article.
PlanSponsor: Rise in TDF Popularity Causes Core Menus to Shrink
NEPC’s 2023 DC Plan Trends & Fee survey results were featured in a recent PlanSponsor article which discusses how because target–date funds represent a large and growing share of plan assets, plan sponsors are narrowing their core investment menus. View the article on PlanSponsor’s site here.
“The rising popularity of target-date funds in defined contribution plans has led to a reduction in the number of core menu investment options, according to a new NEPC survey.
After surveying 240 DC plans, of which the average plan had $1.5 billion in assets, NEPC’s 2023 DC Plan Trends and Fee Survey revealed that 97% of plans offer TDFs and that, on average, 47% of plan assets are invested in TDFs.
As a result, the core menu is shrinking. For example, in 2010, when an average of 28% of assets were invested in TDFs, that meant 72% of assets were invested in offerings in the core menu. However, by 2023, assets in TDFs had steadily increased to reach that 47% figure, meaning only 53% of assets are now invested in the core menu, NEPC found. “
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“Bill Ryan, a partner in NEPC and head of its DC team, says the industry has been telling the story that older participants are taking the most advantage of the core menu for a decade, but it may not necessarily be true anymore. As automatic enrollment has become more prevalent, Ryan says, more participants—across all ages—have invested more via target-date funds, which tend to be the default investment.
According to NEPC, close to 30% of plans have fewer than 10 core investment options, and Emma O’Brien, a principal in NEPC, predicts this trend toward streamlining will continue.
‘If you look across the different buckets where we’re breaking out the number of core options that are offered, equities compressed at a much faster rate relative to the other options that are offered, and I think that’s driven by the fact that, historically, there have been multiple flavors of active equity options within lineups,’ O’Brien says.”
. . .
“Target-date funds with systematic distribution allow us to provide a paycheck in retirement, which I call the Batman dilemma,” Ryan says. “[It’s] maybe not the hero that you want, but it’s the hero that you need right now.”
Read the full article on Plan Sponsor’s website here.
CNBC: A Growing Number of Colleges are Rolling Out ‘No-Loan’ Policies.
NEPC’s Colin Hatton sat down with Jessica Dickler at CNBC to discuss the current pressures institutions of higher education are facing, including the impact of declining tuition revenue. View the full article on CNBC’s site here.
Barring a $1 billion donation or broad-based student loan forgiveness, college is becoming a path for only those with the means to pay for it, many reports now show.
But some colleges have a new strategy to entice students wary of the high cost.
Roughly two dozen schools have introduced “no-loan” policies, which means they are eliminating student loans altogether from their financial aid packages.
. . .
“Nationwide, colleges continue to feel the consequences of fewer students and declining tuition revenue, according to Colin Hatton, senior consultant of NEPC’s endowments and foundations team. For the most part, college endowments have paid the price.
“The higher educational system is under stress,” Hatton said.”
Read the full article on CNBC’s website here.
Pensions & Investments: Larissa Davy to Lead NEPC's Newly Opened London Office
The opening of NEPC’s new London office was featured by Pensions & Investments. Excerpts from the article are shown below. View the article on Pensions & Investments’ site here.
“Larissa Davy, a senior investment director on NEPC’s research team focused on infrastructure, has relocated from Boston to lead the firm’s newly opened London office.
CIO Tim McCusker said the Feb. 27 opening of the Boston-based consulting and investment firm’s London office, its first overseas, will bolster its coverage of global investment managers and strategies— with a focus on private markets — for NEPC’s predominantly U.S. client base.”
. . .
“Having a London office will also help NEPC better compete with investment consultants that have global footprints, he said.
While prospective clients reviewing NEPC’s research on non-U.S. managers and ideas about the global investment landscape typically come away thinking highly of the firm’s work, “we weren’t answering yes” to RFP questions about whether NEPC has overseas offices, McCusker noted. “We feel like we’re a very global organization and wanted to align that,” he said.”
Click here to continue reading the full Pensions & Investments article.
FIN News: NEPC Expands Outside U.S. With London Office
The opening of NEPC’s new London office was featured by FIN News. Excerpts from the article are shown below. View the article in it’s entirety on FIN News’ site here.
“Investment consulting firm NEPC today announced the official opening of its London office.
The new office underscores NEPC’s “commitment to providing global strategies and solutions to portfolios” and regional efforts will be led by Larissa Davy, senior investment director of real assets. She will be joined in the new office by Senior Investment Director Andrew Petterson, a firm spokesperson said.”
. . .
“London marks the first international office for NEPC, which is headquartered in Boston and maintains offices in Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C., Chicago, Las Vegas, Portland, Ore. and San Francisco.”
Pensions & Investments: Alternatives ETFs Still Waiting for Their Big Moment with Institutions
NEPC’s Dulari Pancholi was quoted in a recent Pensions & Investments article which discusses that despite heavy allocations to other forms of alts, institutional investors and private wealth clients are not yet looking to bring alternative ETFs into their portfolios. View the article on Pensions & Investments’ site here.
Over the last few years, the allocation that large institutional investors have been willing to commit to alternatives has appeared limitless. And the larger the investor, the more likely they were to utilize alts.
With few exceptions, however, alternatives offerings in the $8.3 trillion U.S. exchange-traded product market have failed to attract significant institutional interest. Yet some recent market and product trends have helped to shine a light on the opportunities and advantages of ETFs beyond equity and fixed-income exposures.
. . .
“Similarly, Dulari Pancholi, partner and head of credit and multiasset research at NEPC, said she has observed investment managers watching ETFs and tracking flows “to get a sense of market movement and sentiment as a measurement to better inform when they might put on or take off a trade.” Institutional investors and private wealth clients, however, are not yet looking to bring alternative ETFs into their portfolios, according to Pancholi.”
Click here to continue reading the full Pensions & Investments article.
Pensions & Investments: Infrastructure Portfolios Soar While Real Estate Stumbles
NEPC’s Matthew Ritter was quoted in a recent Pensions & Investments article to discuss the rise in infrastructure allocations and the expansion of targets based on investor appetite. View the article on Pensions & Investments’ site here.
Real estate equity assets among the top 200 U.S. retirement plans with defined benefit assets stayed relatively flat for the year ended Sept. 30 as write-downs affected performance, while infrastructure continues to grow by leaps and bounds, according to the latest Pensions & Investments survey.
The differences reflect not only performance but the maturity of the real estate asset class, into which U.S. retirement plans have invested for decades, while infrastructure has been one of the fastest growing asset classes from virtually nothing less than 20 years ago.
. . .
“Matthew Ritter, partner and head of real assets investments at investment consultant NEPC, said in an interview that the rise in infrastructure assets is due primarily to so many pension funds creating new targets to the asset class over the past five years and building to those targets.
“Many are still underallocated,” said Ritter, so he expects those assets to continue to rise dramatically. Perhaps the most notable trend among this groundswell of investments is how the markets has evolved and expanded.
“It depends on each investor’s objectives,” said Ritter. “You can achieve return, income stream, partial inflation hedge, and overall a good diversifier for the portfolio.”
“If you look back historically, the traditional definition of infrastructure, you think of infrastructure as long-duration assets with stable cash flows, frequently in a kind of monopolistic environment.”
While that would apply to the traditional areas of investment, such as roads and electric transmission lines, Ritter said he’s seen a big growth in the areas of digital infrastructure, energy transition and renewable energy.
“We’ve increasingly seen managers view infrastructure more as private equity in nature in terms of their risk/return profile,” said Ritter. “That dynamic has expanded the appeal of infrastructure.”
Click here to continue reading the full Pensions & Investments article.
Reuters: Stocks Surge, Bond Yields Slip Ahead of Fed Decision
NEPC’s Phillip Nelson was quoted in a recent Reuters article to discuss the firm’s stance on the market’s take on interest rates. View the article on Reuters’ site here.
NEW YORK/LONDON, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Global stocks surged on Monday, with the S&P 500 closing at a new record close and European shares hitting a two-year high, as markets slashed ambitious bets at the end of 2023 on interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve and other central banks.
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The Wall Street Journal: There’s a New Option in Your 401(k). Read This Before You Try It.
Bill Ryan, Head of Defined Contribution Solutions at NEPC, sat down with The Wall Street Journal to discuss why bespoke retirement plans, such as managed accounts, are not always worth the additional cost. View the article on The Wall Street Journal’s site here.
What’s the best option for your 401(k), one-size-fits-all or a custom fit?
Most of us go with the one-size-fits-all option, putting our retirement savings in target-date funds built to maximize returns based on our timelines for retirement. A growing number of people, however, are choosing the custom fit in the form of managed accounts, which seek to tailor investment portfolios and advice to their situations.
As with clothing, the custom option will cost you. What investors have to determine is whether a managed account merits the price.
. . .
Only about 15% of people in managed accounts typically provide the information needed to personalize their portfolios, said Bill Ryan, head of defined contribution solutions at NEPC. Without data on factors including risk tolerance and outside account balances, people mightmiss out on the potential for extra value that they are paying for, he added.
A small fraction of employers auto-enroll workers in managed accounts, but most plans that offer them leave it up to savers to choose to sign up. Most 401(k) plans offer only one managed account service, making it impossible for employees to comparison shop.
Click here to continue reading the full Wall Street Journal article.
Chief Investment Officer: Public Equities Drove University Endowment Returns in 2023
NEPC’s mega-endowments white paper data was recently featured in an article to discuss what caused many smaller universities to outperform larger university endowments in 2023. View the full article on Chief Investment Officer’s site here.
What allowed the U.C. San Diego Foundation to outperform all of its university endowment peers last year? Its equity-heavy portfolio.
The $1.4 billion university endowment for the University of California, San Diego returned 11.3% in fiscal year 2023, which ended June 30, 2023, the highest reported return of any endowment with more than $1 billion in assets for the period, according to data tracked by NEPC LLC.
. . .
Of the 62 endowments with assets of more than $1 billion tracked by NEPC, six had negative returns in fiscal year 2023. The University of North Carolina, Duke University, Princeton University, Vanderbilt University, Washington University St. Louis and MIT endowments returned losses of 0.4%, 1.0%, 1.7%, 2.0%, 2.3%, and 2.9%, respectively.
What united these funds was their very high allocations to alternative investments, which generally underperformed other asset classes in the fiscal year, most notably private equity.
Click here to read the full interview on Chief Investment Officer’s site.