Vantagepoint Funds and VT PLUS Fund Are Being Made Available to Private Sector Defined Contribution Plans
WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ICMA-RC, which has served public sector retirement plans and employees for over 45 years, is now making the VT PLUS Fund and certain Vantagepoint Funds managed by ICMA-RC available to private sector defined contribution plans on an investment only basis. ICMA-RC currently serves more than a million retirement accounts in approximately 9,000 public sector plans. The defined contribution investment only (DCIO) expansion into the private sector is expected to increase fund assets in support of ICMA-RC's mission to help public sector employees build retirement security.
"ICMA-RC has provided retirement investments and services to the public sector for more than 45 years and we continue to focus on that mission," said ICMA-RC President and CEO Bob Schultze. "We expect that making the Vantagepoint Funds available to private sector employers will benefit public sector plan sponsors through asset growth, which is likely to produce economies of scale. This is a positive step for ICMA-RC, our current public sector clients, and private sector plan participants who can now invest with us."
The VT PLUS Fund, which has more than $10 billion in assets, was a top performing stable value fund for the 1-, 3-, 5- and 10 years ending June 30, 2017, based on data from the Hueler Analytics Stable Value Pooled Fund Comparative Universe.1
Based on total return, 96%, 73%, and 84% of the Vantagepoint S11 class actively managed equity, fixed income, target-date and target-risk funds2 outperformed their Morningstar category peer medians3 for the 1, 5-, and 10-year periods ended June 30, 2017, respectively.
"Making the VT PLUS Fund and multi-managed Vantagepoint Funds available to private sector defined contribution plans will bring historically strong performance and thoughtfully constructed investments from industry-leading managers to a key segment of the retirement market," said ICMA-RC Senior Vice President and Chief Investment Officer Wayne Wicker. "Our experienced in-house investment team is pleased ICMA-RC has decided to expand the availability of our funds to include participants in private sector defined contribution plans."
A dedicated team of highly-skilled financial services professionals is managing the DCIO expansion. Team members include:
- Craig Lombardi, Managing Vice President of DCIO - Formerly of AB (Alliance Bernstein) and Fidelity Investments, Mr. Lombardi is responsible for the overall growth and development of DCIO sales to institutional investors and their advisors.
- Forrest Wilson, Vice President, Institutional Sales, DCIO –Formerly the head of retirement sales at Allianz Global Investors, Mr. Wilson is responsible for DCIO sales in the private sector institutional market.
- Ed DeMarino, Vice President, Defined Contribution Relationship Management – Formerly VP DCIO Relationship Manager at AB (Alliance Bernstein) and VP & Director, Relationship Management at Janus Capital Group, Mr. DeMarino is responsible for business development and relationship management with DCIO retirement platforms throughout the country.
- Sammy Ibrahim, DCIO RFP Manager – Mr. Ibrahim, formerly of Brown Advisory and T. Rowe Price, is responsible for DCIO data analytics as well as building the process for all Investment related RFP's for ICMA-RC's investment product line.
- Katie George, DCIO Consultant Relations Manager – Formerly the fixed income product manager at Calvert Investments and a financial advisor with AXA Advisors, Ms. George now works with consulting firm analysts who evaluate funds for retirement plans.
- Matthew Brenner, Managing Vice President of Investments - A former PIMCO executive, Mr. Brenner now serves in a broad leadership role at ICMA-RC handling investment, operational, technical, and administrative matters within the Investment Division. Mr. Brenner consults with the DCIO sales team on various investment management matters pertaining to the Vantagepoint Funds and VT PLUS Fund.
This experienced team aims to help plan sponsors improve the investments made available to their participants as they strive to achieve their greatest potential for retirement security through multi-managed investment solutions.
The Vantagepoint Funds' multi-manager approach is designed to avoid the risk of concentrated reliance on the results of a single manager. The Funds' approach blends investments from multiple subadvisers with complementary characteristics to broadly diversify ideas, strategies, and styles in an effort to provide attractive returns while minimizing risk. Experienced in-house ICMA-RC fund managers evaluate, select and oversee the subadvisers, continuously monitoring and rebalancing investment strategies as needed. Industry-leading fund managers who subadvise the Vantagepoint Funds include Wellington Management, T. Rowe Price, Los Angeles Capital, Globeflex Capital, Westfield Capital Management and NS Partners.
The VT PLUS Fund and the Vantagepoint Funds are collective investment trust funds (CITs). The industry-wide use of CITs in defined contribution plans is growing significantly, reaching $1.58 trillion in overall assets at year-end 2015, compared with $895.6 billion in 2008, according to Pensions and Investments. CITs typically have simpler governance and management structures, and often have lower fees than comparable mutual funds.
Vantagepoint Funds and the VT PLUS Fund are offered to DCIO clients through ICMA-RC Services, LLC (RC Services), an SEC registered broker-dealer and FINRA member firm. RC Services is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ICMA-RC and an affiliate of VantageTrust Company, LLC.
About Vantagepoint Funds
Vantagepoint Funds are those VT Vantagepoint Funds and VT II Vantagepoint Funds that invest substantially all of their assets in a single VT III Vantagepoint Fund which is multi-managed. VT Vantagepoint Funds, VT II Vantagepoint Funds and VT III Vantagepoint Funds are collective investment trust funds (CITs) established and maintained by VantageTrust Company, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of ICMA-RC, a New Hampshire non-depository trust company, and the sole trustee of these CITs.
ICMA-RC provides investment advisory and management services to VantageTrust Company with respect to the Vantagepoint Funds and the VT PLUS Fund. For more information, please review ICMA-RC's Form ADV, available at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov.
Before investing, please read the Funds' offering and disclosure documents carefully for a complete summary of all fees, expenses, investment objectives and strategies, and risks. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of the amount invested. Investors should carefully consider the information contained in the Funds' offering and disclosure documents before investing. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
About ICMA-RC
Founded in 1972, ICMA-RC is a non-profit financial services corporation focused on providing retirement plans and related services for over a million public sector participant accounts. ICMA-RC's mission is to help build retirement security for public sector employees. For more information, visit www.icmarc.org or follow ICMA-RC on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
| 1 |
Source: Hueler Analytics, Inc. data. The Hueler Analytics Stable Value Pooled Fund Comparative Universe represents the performance returns of actual stable value pooled funds, and its Index is the stable value industry benchmark used by many institutional investors, consultants, advisors and plan sponsors for monitoring stable value pooled funds. Rankings are derived by ICMA-RC from data provided by Hueler Analytics, Inc., a technology and research firm covering stable value products that is not affiliated with ICMA-RC. ICMA-RC does not independently verify Hueler Analytics, Inc. data. Gross returns used in the Universe and in the rankings do not include plan administration fees, adviser expenses, or other stable value fund costs – actual performance experienced by participants would be commensurately lower. |
| 2 |
Comparative performance provided is for the S11 class of the actively managed equity, fixed income, target date and target risk Vantagepoint Funds. It does not include performance of our proprietary funds that follow a passively managed or indexed approach as those funds are not being made available to defined contribution plans on an investment only basis (DCIO). The S11 class is the lowest cost class of the Vantagepoint Funds and includes no distribution, shareholder servicing or recordkeeping fee. The S11 class is not available to DCIO. Instead, the R10 class of the Vantagepoint Funds will be made available to DCIO. It also includes no distribution, shareholder servicing or plan administration fees. We provide S11 class performance because the R10 class is not yet funded and therefore has no performance information. We expect the total fees of the R10 class will be on average 1 basis point lower than the S11 class. Performance information for the S11 class prior to its inception date is the performance of the Fund adjusted to reflect the estimated net fees and expenses of this class. Note that additional classes of the Vantagepoint Funds will be made available to DCIO and those classes may include additional fees such as distribution, shareholder servicing, and plan administration. Classes with additional fees will have lower commensurate performance. |
| 3 |
Each Vantagepoint Fund's Morningstar category is a group of funds with similar investment objectives and strategies. Morningstar places funds in certain categories based on a fund's historical portfolio holdings. All classes of a fund are included in the Morningstar category, so those classes with higher fees will have lower commensurate performance. Relative performance was based on each fund's Total Return (including the effects of fee waivers) percentile rank within their appropriate Morningstar category. Outperformance was measured by ranking better than at least 50% of the category peers. Performance information for the S11 class prior to its inception date is the performance of the Fund adjusted to reflect the estimated net fees and expenses of the class. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. |
SOURCE ICMA-RC
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