Products December 18, 2015

Manning & Napier to Acquire Rainer Investment Management

The companies expect to bring new market cap-based equity strategies to retirement plan clients, with a focus on target-date funds.

Reported by

Manning & Napier, a provider of retirement plan investment services, is expanding its target-date fund capabilities through the pending purchase of active investment manager Rainer Investment Management.

According to the firms, the deal will allow Manning & Napier to deliver new market capitalization-based equity strategies, especially within target-date funds, described by the company as “the foundation of a broad participant menu and custom target-date products built by advisers and consultants.”

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Officially, Manning & Napier will acquire a majority interest in the Seattle-based Rainier Investment Management LLC, which currently pilots more than $3 billion in cap-based U.S. and non-U.S. equity strategies and fixed-income products. The investment teams of both Manning & Napier and Rainier will remain autonomous, however, “and the transaction will not result in changes to either firm’s investment personnel or processes.” Rainier will continue to operate from their Seattle headquarters.

Jim Ridgeway, president of Rainier, predicts the transaction will provide greater financial, structural and distribution resources for both companies. Under the terms of the transaction, “key professionals at Rainier will maintain a 25% ownership stake in Rainier, with Manning & Napier owning the remaining 75%.” The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2016, subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.

Manning & Napier CEO Patrick Cunningham says the firm will focus initially on expanding product solutions offered to defined contribution plan sponsors and participants. “Rainier’s fundamental approach to active management is an ideal complement to Manning & Napier’s capabilities,” he suggests.

More information is available on the Manning & Napier website. 

Compliance December 18, 2015

Health Plan Sponsor to Repay Kept Premiums

A business owner failed to refund more than $8,000 in employee-paid premiums after his company went out of business.
Reported by

A business owner and health plan fiduciary has agreed to repay $8,892 in health insurance premiums employees paid toward their health care plan before the company went out of business.

According to the Department of Labor (DOL), before going out of business, Syncor LLC, doing business as Specprint Group Health Plan, began to have financial troubles and failed to timely pay its insurance premiums, resulting in the termination of the group health plan for employees. After terminating the plan, Blue Cross refunded the unused, late-paid premium to Syncor, but the company failed to refund the unused portion of the premiums to employees and instead used the refund for its own purposes.

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William W. Bibb was Syncor’s owner and the fiduciary to the group health plan. The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennesse approved a consent judgment in which Bibb agreed that he should be removed as the plan’s fiduciary, that he should be enjoined from acting as a fiduciary in the future, that the employees’ unreimbursed contributions should be repaid, and that AMI Benefits of Youngstown, Ohio, should be appointed as the plan’s successor fiduciary.

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