Prudential Adds Russell TDFs to IncomeFlex

“Prudential is pleased to be able to help place more and more American workers on a secure path to and through retirement by increasing their choice of target-date fund families that can be used to meet their guaranteed lifetime income needs,” says Srinivas Reddy, head of Prudential Retirement’s Institutional Income and Capital Markets, based in Newark, New Jersey. “We are happy to welcome Russell Investments’ LifePoints Institutional Target Date Funds to the list of target-date funds available with IncomeFlex. Our growing platform features Prudential Day One IncomeFlex Target Funds, as well as target date funds from American Century, Fidelity, J.P. Morgan, T. Rowe Price and Vanguard.”

Prudential created IncomeFlex Target specifically for DC plans. The solution provides participants with guaranteed lifetime income, sustained potential for growth, downside protection for retirement income and complete access to their market value.

The Russell LifePoints Institutional Target Date Funds invest across a broad range of asset classes: equity (U.S., non-U.S. and global), fixed income (U.S. and non-U.S.), and real assets (global listed infrastructure, global listed real estate and commodities), and use a blend of active and passive management. The portion that is actively managed is invested with a mix of third-party advisers selected by Russell’s manager research process, and focuses on areas where Russell’s capital market insights indicate there is the highest potential for active manager outperformance, including global equities, small cap equities and real assets. The asset allocation of these funds automatically becomes more conservative as the target goal approaches by lessening equity exposure and increasing exposure in fixed income type investments. Principal value is not guaranteed, including at the target date.

“Interest in guaranteed income solutions is increasing among small- to mid-sized defined contribution plans, and this represents a significant opportunity to bring together the benefits of open architecture target-date funds with a guaranteed income solution for the defined contribution plan market,” says Jeff Eng, director, retirement income solutions, at Russell Investments, based in Seattle.