CANNEX Financial Exchanges Names Gary Baker Head of U.S. Operations

TORONTO, Jan. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- CANNEX Financial Exchanges, which facilitates the sale of financial products in the U.S. and Canada and is the leading provider of comparative information about income annuities, today announced the appointment of Gary Baker as president of its U.S. division.

Baker, who has extensive experience in the insurance and retirement income markets, will lead the CANNEX operation in the U.S. market, where retirement income is an issue of growing concern and opportunity.

"Advisors are demanding unbiased information about income annuities which are increasingly seen as a separate asset class required for clients' optimal retirement income portfolios," said Lowell Aronoff, CEO and co-founder of CANNEX. "With Gary leading our expansion in the U.S., we'll be able to help more advisors and, ultimately, more consumers make financially sound retirement income choices."

CANNEX, which launched its service facilitating the sale of income annuities in the U.S. in 2001, enables advisors to provide their clients with custom, apples-to-apples comparisons of annuities, including features and details specific to their clients' needs. CANNEX is able to do so because insurance carriers provide it with their proprietary methods of calculating income annuities, which CANNEX reprograms onto its servers. The carriers maintain the parameters and guarantee the results.

"For many years, income annuities have been regarded by the academic community as an essential component of an optimal retirement portfolio for most retirees. With new educational programs and software tools, a growing number of advisors today understand that they need to incorporate income annuities in their clients' retirement income plans," said Baker. "Our goal is to help them do that as efficiently and insightfully as possible by putting critical decision-making information at their fingertips."

Most recently, Baker was vice president, income solutions, for Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co. (MassMutual), where he facilitated the development of a retirement income strategy and led initiatives to help the business develop new products and new markets.  Prior to joining MassMutual, Baker had an 18-year career with GE Capital, where he held senior positions in retirement solutions and marketing. Overall, his experience in the retirement market has broadly covered retail and institutional businesses as well as insurance and money management.

Baker is an active participant in industry forums and organizations associated with both the retirement income and managed money markets. He also has had numerous speaking roles at industry events and has written extensively in industry journals on the topic of retirement income. Baker holds a BS in finance from Pennsylvania State University.

About CANNEX Financial Exchanges Ltd.

CANNEX Financial Exchanges Limited is a privately held company that provides data and information services to the financial services industries in the U.S. and Canada. An independent third party, CANNEX gathers and compiles data and calculation values for financial products and services, then redistributes this information to brokers, agents and wirehouses; financial institutions; print and electronic media; analytical services and consumers in the most efficient method for each client. The CANNEX suite of products and services in the U.S. include: surveys of the Single Premium Deferred Annuities (SPDAs) market; surveys of the income annuity (Single Premium Immediate Annuities - SPIAs) market; retirement income educational tools; calculators; hosted proprietary illustration systems for income annuity, SPDA and Guaranteed Minimum Withdrawal Benefit (GMWB) products; and custom written algorithms for income annuities. For more information, visit www.cannex.com.

SOURCE CANNEX Financial Exchanges