Deals and People December 10, 2012

Ascende Adds Health and Welfare Consultants

December 10, 2012 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – Ascende, formerly Employee Benefit Solutions (EBS), announced the addition of several experienced health and welfare consulting professionals.
Reported by

Carol McBride, Dawn Gourgues, Justin Elmore and Michael Ochoa have joined the Ascende team.  

McBride has more than 16 years of experience managing domestic and global human resources, including health and welfare and retirement benefits for energy and health care firms in the Houston and Denver areas. Her areas of expertise are in benefits administration, contract negotiation and strategic planning. McBride has held the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) certification since 2005.  

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Gourgues joins Ascende with more than 18 years of experience in group benefit plan consulting, resolving complex plan issues, managing vendor relationships and delivering legislative guidance. Gourgues has a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing and a Master of Science degree in Marketing Research from Louisiana State University.  

Elmore has been in the health and welfare consulting business for more than 20 years. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Southwestern University.  

Ochoa was a group benefits account manager and underwriter for several leading insurance carriers for more than 25 years before joining Ascende. He brings an understanding of the way carriers price and manage health, life and disability benefits. Ochoa has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Business Administration and Economics from Rice University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston.  

More about Ascende is at http://www.ascende.com.
Investing December 10, 2012

ETF Assets Continue Climb

December 10, 2012 (PLANSPONSOR.com) – In November, exchange-traded fund (ETF) assets increased $27.8 billion, or 2.2%.
Reported by

According to State Street Global Advisors’ (SSgA) ETF Snapshot report, the Fixed Income category led the flows, taking in $4.5 billion for the month, which increased its year-to-date total net flows to $51.1 billion. The Size-Mid Cap category attracted $38 billion in inflows.  

During November, the S&P 500 Index returned 0.6%, while the MSCI Europe, Australasia and Far East (EAFE) Index increased 2.4%. Commodities were positive, with the S&P GSCI Index up 1.5% and Gold gaining 0.4%. U.S. Bonds were positive, with the Barclays U.S. Treasury Index and the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Index increasing 0.5% and 0.2%, respectively.  

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The top three managers in the U.S. ETF marketplace were BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard. Collectively, they account for approximately 83% of the U.S.-listed ETF market. The top three ETFs in terms of dollar volume traded for the month were the SPDR S&P 500 [SPY], the iShares Russell 2000 [IWM] and the PowerShares QQQ [QQQ].  

SSgA said 1,237 ETFs, with assets totaling $1.3 trillion, were managed by 38 ETF managers as of November 30.

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