Investment Product and Service Launches

Art by Jackson Epstein

HB&T Creates CIF with Jensen Investment Management

Hand Benefits & Trust (HB&T) has launched a new collective investment fund (CIF) in collaboration with Jensen Investment Management. HB&T is a national provider of employee benefit trust products and services.

The Jensen Quality Growth Collective Investment Fund seeks to provide qualified institutional investors with the firm’s flagship Quality Growth Strategy, with the lower shareholder servicing costs associated with a CIF. The Jensen Quality Growth Strategy seeks to invest in quality businesses that can weather all economic climates and aims to provide attractive returns while mitigating downside risk.

Created by the Hand Composite Employee Benefit Trust and sponsored by HB&T, the CIF will enable Jensen to service a wide range of institutional investors, especially in the defined contribution (DC) market where plan sponsors are seeking compliant and more cost-effective investment options, according to HB&T.

The Jensen Quality Growth CIF launched on February 1, and will be accessible to eligible retirement plans through most recordkeeping platforms.

Principal and NDW Announce ETF Model Portfolio

Principal has partnered with Nasdaq Dorsey Wright (NDW) to present the Principal NDW Factor Rotation model portfolio.

The dynamic factor portfolio, which is comprised entirely of Principal’s U.S. equity factor exchange-traded fund (ETF) lineup, aims to identify those factors that will perform well over the coming months. According to Principal, this is the first guided ETF model from NDW that utilizes both momentum and mean reversion, in an attempt to capture short-term continuation signals while simultaneously avoiding performance drag due to holding momentum names too long. 

A total of six ETFs are considered for selection in the model portfolio, including Principal’s US Mega Cap Multi-Factor (USMC), Sustainable Momentum (PMOM), Price Setters (PSET), Contrarian Value (PVAL), US Small Cap Multi-Factor (PSC), and Shareholder Yield (PY) ETFs. The model first went live on February 8. 

“Factor investing will continue to grow in importance and adoption,” says Paul Kim, head of ETF strategy at Principal Global Investors. “Our suite of factor ETFs benefits from decades of active and factor investing expertise, the rapidly growing body of academic research, and the many advantages of a rules-based implementation in an ETF. We are delighted that Nasdaq Dorsey Wright has developed a relative strength methodology incorporating our factor ETFs to help investors achieve their unique investment goals.”

There is no overlay model fee in addition to the underlying ETF fees, which range from 12 to 38 basis points. However, financial advisers can only access the model portfolio through subscription to Nasdaq Dorsey Wright’s platform.

As part of the collaboration, Nasdaq Dorsey Wright is responsible for all aspects of portfolio construction and ongoing management, including fund selection and asset allocation decisions. Dorsey Wright selects ETFs for use in the model portfolio based on its proprietary “relative strength matrix” system and a new indicator for measuring momentum sustainability.