Deals and People January 15, 2019

Acquisition Creates Benefits Communications Group Segal Benz

Jennifer Benz, senior vice president, who was CEO of Benz Communications, said its acquisition by The Segal Group expands areas of service for both firms.

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The Segal Group has acquired Benz Communications, a human resources (HR) and employee benefits communications consulting firm.

The combined group is named Segal Benz (segalbenz.com) and will be led by Jennifer Benz, senior vice president, who was CEO of Benz Communications. The acquisition significantly expands The Segal Group’s communication consulting practice.

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“We’re really excited about joining Segal, to be able expand our team and expand the type of organizations that we work with,” Benz told PLANSPONSOR. She said Segal is a firm that very much shares Benz Communications’ values in terms of how to run a business and take care of their own employees, as well as how to do the right thing for clients so they can take the best care of their people. “Once we started talking to people, we thought there were so many synergies and shared values that would let us take things to the next level in terms of being able to support the organizations that we work with,” she said.

According to Benz, as her firm looked to the future, the question was, “How can we grow our impact even more and do more of the work our team loves and we think is so vital to the industry?” Partnering with Segal was the answer.

“And for Segal, they see communications as a huge part of the business across all of the practice areas—not just benefits but also other areas of HR where organizations are really having to do a lot—to compete very differently, to think about talent very differently and position them for success in the future. So they saw an investment in growing the communications group as a key part of serving their very broad group of clients now and in the future,” she added.

Asked what will improve as a result of the acquisition, Benz said it expands areas of service for both firms. For example, she said one thing Segal does very well that Benz Communications did not do is provide personalized communications. “They have a great group that does personalized statements for all areas of HR and benefits, and they also have great experts in other practices that we’ll be able to lean on, and have already started to.”

Benz added that her firm has been experimenting with new things, including interactive tools and different digital media, a chat box and augmented reality. The Segal Group’s current clients will have access to those things and be “able to always stay a couple of steps ahead.”

Benz is based in San Francisco. The Segal Benz leadership team will include New York-based Randolph B. Carter, senior vice president, who was the leader of Segal’s national communications practice, and San Francisco-based Isabelle Englund-Geiger, senior vice president, who co-led Benz Communications.
Ask the Experts January 15, 2019

(b)lines Ask the Experts – Elimination of Suspension of Contributions After Hardship Withdrawal

Experts from Groom Law Group and Cammack Retirement Group answer questions concerning 403(b) plans and regulations.
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“I understand that the new proposed hardship regulations will require us to eliminate the six-month suspension of elective deferrals from all retirement plans that we sponsor following a hardship distribution. We’ve always hated this provision, and we are eager to eliminate it as soon as possible. How soon may we eliminate this provision?”

 

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Stacey Bradford, Kimberly Boberg, David Levine and David Powell, with Groom Law Group, and Michael A. Webb, vice president, Retirement Plan Services, Cammack Retirement Group, answer:

 

You are not alone, as many plan sponsors find this provision to be an administrative burden due to the fact that it requires a rather complicated interface between the plan sponsor and recordkeeper to properly administer. The good news is that the 6-month suspension provision can be eliminated fairly quickly, as soon as January 1, 2019. In fact, you can also elect for current suspensions to cease as of January 1, 2019, even though the related distributions occurred in 2018, when the old rules still apply.

 

For example, if you have a hardship distribution that was made on October 1, 2018, you can stop the suspension of elective deferrals on January 1, 2019, even though the six-month suspension period had yet to be completed. Alternatively, you can elect for the six-month suspension to continue into 2019 for such a distribution (until March 31, 2019, in this example), but since your desire is to eliminate the provision as soon as possible, rescinding all elective deferral suspensions on January 1, 2019, seems preferable.

 

It should also be noted that, unlike some other aspects of the proposed hardship regulations, if the regulations are finalized as written, the removal of the 6-month suspension of elective deferrals is MANDATORY, for hardship distributions made on or after January 1, 2020; plan sponsors cannot elect to retain this provision after that date.

 

 

NOTE: This feature is to provide general information only, does not constitute legal advice, and cannot be used or substituted for legal or tax advice.

 

Do YOU have a question for the Experts? If so, we would love to hear from you! Simply forward your question to Rebecca.Moore@strategic-i.com with Subject: Ask the Experts, and the Experts will do their best to answer your question in a future Ask the Experts column.

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