Ryan Labs adds overlay strategies enhancing lineup of institutional investment solutions

NEW YORK CITY, May 19, 2016 /PRNewswire/ - Ryan Labs Asset Management, a Sun Life Investment Management company, has broadened its base of institutional investment solutions with the introduction of customized overlay strategies for defined benefit pension plans and other institutional clients.

Ryan Labs Asset Management specializes in liability driven investing (LDI) and total return fixed income strategies, and has consistently outperformed its benchmarks across both LDIⁱ and total returnⁱⁱ platforms. Their LDI solutions are actively managed and are customized to meet the unique goals of its clients. With the introduction of overlay strategies, they are bringing even deeper capabilities to help clients meet their pension obligations and achieve their investment goals.

"We're excited to bring this new range of solutions to our clients," Ryan Labs Asset Management's Senior Vice President of Applied Strategy and Overlay, Chris Adair said. "One of the primary reasons for becoming part of the Sun Life Investment Management group of companies in 2015 was to expand our platform, capabilities and the solutions we can offer to clients, while maintaining our existing investment strategies. The overlay investment team manages approximately $43 billion of the Sun Life Financial group of companies' portfolio in overlay positions in interest rates, foreign exchange, and equities (as of March 31, 2016). This group has depth, experience and expertise in designing, implementing and managing overlay strategies, and provides a robust complement to our existing product offerings."

Overlay strategies use a variety of investment tools - such as swaps, swaptions, options, and futures - to gain, offset or substitute specific portfolio exposures beyond those provided by the actual underlying portfolio assets. These strategies continue to grow in use and importance as institutional investors, including pension plans, seek ways to manage risks and enhance returns to meet their obligations.

All Ryan Labs Asset Management overlay strategies are customized to specific client portfolios, with strategies designed to accomplish a range of goals:

• Overlay completion for LDI accounts is designed to allow a plan to increase its interest rate hedging to reduce funding volatility, with little impact to the plan's underlying asset allocation.
  
  
• Swaption strategies can be designed to provide a zero or reduced premium cost method for plans to neutralize the impact of substantial interest rate changes on a liability portfolio - and help stabilize its funded status while maintaining its current asset allocation.
  
  
• Synthetic equity helps a plan maintain a desired level of interest rate risk hedging with fixed income while providing additional return-seeking exposure through synthetic equity beta.
  
  
• Customized overlay solutions can be applied to mitigate risk and/or enhance returns providing a more efficient use of capital - strategies can be tailored to capture uncorrelated risk premium that perform well when in risk off environments.

About overlay strategies

Overlay strategies use derivative instruments (such as interest rate swaps) to obtain exposure greater than the actual funded amount of the mandate. Derivatives may involve certain costs and risks such as liquidity, interest rate, market, credit, management and the risk that a position could not be closed when most advantageous. Investing in derivatives involves leverage and could lose more than the amount invested.

The Ryan Labs Asset Management overlay strategies are only available to Eligible Contract Participants as defined in Commodity Exchange Act Section 1(a) (18).

This page only contains summary information regarding the overlay investment management approaches and is not a complete description of the investment objectives, portfolio management and research that supports these approaches. There is no guarantee that these investment strategies will work under all market conditions. Each investor should evaluate their ability to invest long-term, especially during periods of downturn in the market.

This material contains opinions and such opinions are subject to change without notice.

About Ryan Labs Asset Management
Ryan Labs Asset Management is part of the Sun Life Investment Management group of companies. Ryan Labs Asset Management specializes in managing fixed income portfolios for institutional clients. Its platform includes liability driven investing strategies managed versus a Custom Liability Index® and total return strategies managed against traditional fixed income benchmarks. In 1991, Ryan Labs Asset Management became the first asset manager to create and manage a bond portfolio versus a daily Custom Liability Index® consistent with FAS 158 accounting standards.

About Sun Life Investment Management
Sun Life Investment Management is an institutional investment management platform of Sun Life Financial. The Sun Life Investment Management group of institutional investment management companies comprises Bentall Kennedy Group in North America, Prime Advisors, Inc. Ryan Labs Asset Management Inc. and Sun Life Institutional Investments (U.S.) LLC in the United States, and Sun Life Institutional Investments (Canada) Inc. in Canada. These operations have combined third-party assets under management of US$44 billion, as of March 31, 2016.

Note to editors: All figures in U.S. dollars unless otherwise stated.

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ⁱ Since its 1991 inception

ⁱⁱ Since its 1996 inception

SOURCE Sun Life Investment Management