Products November 28, 2007

XShares Teams with RPG to Offer ETFs in 401(k) Plans

November 28, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - XShares Advisors LLC, sponsor of the TDAX, Adelante, and HealthShares families of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), has announced a strategic partnership with RPG Consultants, a retirement plan provider of recordkeeping, administration, and consulting services, to provide plan sponsors, advisers, brokers, and third-party administrators (TPAs) the ability to add lower- cost ETFs to their retirement plan portfolios.
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The RPG open architecture platform facilitates the use of actively and passively managed mutual funds as well as any of the approximately 550 ETFs currently trading in the U.S., according to the announcement.

In addition, RPG Consultants will be providing the platform to allow advisers to offer the XShares Advisors’ TDAX family of target-date ETFs, the first lifecycle ETFs to be introduced to the market as the default option in their 401(k) offerings to comply with recent Qualified Default Investment Alternative (QDIA) legislation, the announcement said.

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“Our TDAX family of five lifecycle ETFs provides investors with fully diversified retirement strategies bundled in a single ETF that automatically rebalances its constituents as it approaches its specific target retirement date,” said XShares Group CEO, Bill Henson, in a press release. “It’s a lower-cost, one-step solution to retirement planning.”

By working with many financial institutions in eliminating the trading fees and commissions typically associated with retail ETF purchases, RPG devised a fully-automated, daily valuation, Internet-driven administrative and recordkeeping program that results in lower overall plan fees. “We encourage advisers to take advantage of the features that our platform provides, including offering asset allocations models using inexpensive ETFs,” said Alvin H. Rapp, RPG Consultants founding partner.

More about XShares Advisors is at  www.xsharesadvisors.com . More about RPG Consultants is at  www.rpgny.com .

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