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Products April 7, 2016
Investment Product and Service Launches
LMCG Investments adds to small-cap offerings; Voya Financial expands access to its target-date mutual fund series; Fringe Benefits Design partners with Redhawk Wealth Advisors for ERISA fiduciary services.
Reported by John Manganaro
LMCG Launches Small Cap Fund
LMCG Investments announced the launch of the LMCG International Small Cap Fund.
According to the firm, the fund allows financial advisers and investors to access LMCG’s international small cap strategy through a no-load mutual fund. The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation, “adding value versus the MSCI EAFE Small Cap Index using a bottom-up quantitative approach to investing.”
“International small caps can offer important diversification benefits as part of an equity allocation, but investors often overlook this asset class or have limited access to it,” says Kenneth Swan, CEO of LMCG. “We believe that experienced active management can add value in this area and that a quantitative approach is the most efficient way to sort through the large universe of international small-cap stocks.”
The fund was previously available as a collective trust fund, available only to large institutional investors, but LMCG believes that mutual fund structure will appeal to financial advisers and their clients, “given the limited number of competitor funds and LMCG’s experience in this asset class.”
The fund is managed by Gordon Johnson, portfolio manager with more than 23 years of experience managing global portfolios and developing quantitative investment models. Shannon Ericson is co-portfolio manager, and Daniel Getler is portfolio analyst. The team “seeks international small-cap stocks with attractive valuations that also have good growth prospects and high-quality earnings.”
The firm further explains that the fund can serve as part of an equity allocation in a portfolio that seeks to diverse sources of return. “Additionally, the strong U.S. dollar has been a headwind for non-U.S. dollar-based assets since 2011. For investors who believe the U.S. dollar will weaken, this fund can provide important non-U.S. dollar exposure.”
More information is at www.lmcgfunds.com.
NEXT: Voya Grows TDF LineupVoya Grows TDF Lineup
Voya Investment Management has expanded access to its target-date mutual fund series, the Target Retirement Funds.
According to Voya, the funds have been added to several new defined contribution (DC) platforms including Paychex, ADP and Ascensus. Voya has also launched two new share classes, A and R6, due to high demand from retirement plans.
“As a pioneer in target-date solutions, with over a decade of experience and over $11 billion in target-date assets, we are proud to fulfill an industry need and enhance our offerings in the DCIO [defined contribution investment only] space,” says Jake Tuzza, head of Voya intermediary distribution. “In our most recent Participant Preferences survey, we found that target-date investors value a multi-manager structure, allowing for a more diverse array of asset classes and investment managers, as well as a reduction in single-manager risk.”
Voya says the Target Retirement Funds provide investors with a number of features including an intelligent blend of both active and passive strategies; a participant-centric “to” glide path that emphasizes an aggressive investment approach early in a participant’s career and a more conservative approach closer to retirement, relative to peers; and broad diversification of traditional and nontraditional asset classes.
More information about Voya’s target-date survey can be found here.
NEXT: Fringe Benefits Teams with Redhawk
Fringe Benefits Teams with Redhawk
Registered investment adviser (RIA) Redhawk Wealth Advisors is teaming up with Fringe Benefits Design to serve as an independent Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) investment fiduciary.
In this capacity, Redhawk will utilize the E-Valuator application to provide ERISA 3(38) investment management and 3(21) investment adviser services, starting with a base of over 400 plans representing $750 million in plan assets. Redhawk will be responsible for performing the due diligence, selection, monitoring and replacement of investments for the plans, the firms say.
The firms explain that the service will help ERISA investment fiduciaries manage their responsibility to prudently select and monitor plan investments, especially the qualified default investment alternative (QDIA).
“We conducted comprehensive due diligence on the top investment fiduciaries and were extremely impressed with the fiduciary services provided by Redhawk,” says Kevin Miller, president and CEO of Fringe Benefits Design. “In light of the new DOL [Department of Labor] fiduciary rule, we felt it was important for all of our plans to have this fiduciary oversight.”
Rick Keast, president of Redhawk Wealth Advisors, says the new partnership is another win for the firm’s E-Valuator tool, which can help advisers figure out how to manage and mitigate fiduciary liability in their plans, portfolios and practices.