Products March 31, 2016

Newport Group Launches as a Unified Brand

Verisight, DailyAccess and The Newport group are coming together as a single brand.
Reported by

Verisight has unified with DailyAccess and The Newport Group under a new brand: Newport Group.

The company has more than $75 billion in retirement assets under administration and more than $150 billion in corporate retirement and insurance assets.

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As part of the rebrand, Verisight Trust Company has changed its name to Newport Trust Company. Newport Trust Company provides non-discretionary, directed trustee services to retirement services clients.

Newport Group COO Laura Ramanis, based in Walnut Creek, California, tells PLANSPONSOR, “I think as we looked at the various stages of the companies and what our clients need for the future, we decided now is a good time to unify. It maximizes our efficiencies.”

Verisight acquired DailyAccess in January 2014 and the combined company included third party fiduciary support and health and welfare services. Ramanis says the company will continue to offer all those services going forward. The Newport Group and Verisight combined forces in October of that year.

The company has the ability to provide solutions tailored to the needs of employers of every size, from small businesses to the Fortune 1000. Newport Group specializes in every aspect of plan design and consulting, targeted participant communications, regulatory compliance, recordkeeping and administration. It also offers consulting services for retirement, benefit and compensation plans—as well as corporate insurance services, including bank-owned life insurance (BOLI) and corporate-owned life insurance (COLI).

NEXT: What plan sponsors and advisers will see

“The rebranding will be seamless to clients. Service teams, tools, reporting features and logins will remain the same. So will the company’s independence and commitment to exceptional results,” Ramanis says. However, with the new brand comes a new website. She notes that clients and advisers will still be able to access all their information from the old websites, or they have the alternative of using the new www.newportgroup.com to access their information. Ramanis sees the company eventually moving to just one website.

In addition, Newport Group is retaining its existing groups’ recordkeeping platforms, but Ramanis says they will continue to think about the future and what is best for clients.

According to Ramanis, there will be a new logo. “It has kind of a clean, fresh, modern look with bold blue color and minimal text. The idea is to communicate clearly and effectively,” she says. “’Independent, Experienced and Responsive’ will be our tagline going to market; that’s what sets us apart.”

Newport Group CEO Greg Tschider said in a statement, “Our independence, coupled with our experience and responsiveness, is what our brand stands for. Most providers of our size are attached to a larger financial institution. Because we remain independent, Newport Group has no incentive to market specific investment products to a client, and our consulting, recordkeeping and administration services are objective, fee-based and fully transparent.”

“We’re just really excited about the new brand. Together we are one of the top retirement providers in the nation,” Ramanis concludes.
Compliance March 30, 2016

Merrill Lynch Cleared of Wrongdoing in Excessive Fee Case

A federal district court found that Merrill Lynch was not acting as a fiduciary under ERISA.
Reported by

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has found that Merrill Lynch was not acting in a fiduciary capacity under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by presenting a roster of funds from which 401(k) plan trustees could choose to offer in the plan. 

The court determined the trustees had final say on which investment options would be available to participants and the fact that they may have discussed or negotiated this decision with Merrill Lynch does not mean Merrill Lynch had discretionary control over the management or administration of the plan or its assets. In addition, U.S. District Judge Paul G. Gardephe ruled that offering a roster of funds from which to choose is not providing individualized investment advice to the plan. 

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Merrill Lynch was the investment adviser for the Clifford Chance US LLP 401(k) plan from 1991 to 2006 and the recordkeeper, administrator and investment menu provider from 1991 through 2015. In this role, it provided a roster or slate of mutual funds from which plan trustees or the investment adviser would select to be offered in the plan. 

Craig M. Walker, who worked at Clifford Chance until 2003, but still has assets in the firm’s 401(k) plan, alleges that Merrill Lynch failed to include a sufficient number of low-fee funds in the roster of funds it provided to the plan’s trustees; included its own high-fee funds and collective investment trusts in the roster; and orchestrated a “revenue sharing” arrangement by which it reaped kickbacks from fees plan participants paid into the funds. In addition, he says the revenue sharing was divided with Clifford Chance and was not disclosed to participants until the second quarter of 2012. Even then, he says, the notice provided was misleading because the revenue sharing was described as “indirect revenue” and the notice did not disclose the size of payments.

The district court granted Merrill Lynch’s motion to dismiss the case. The opinion in Walker v. Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. is here.

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