Investment Advisory Group - We Bridge Margin to Mission for Nonprofits

Retirement Plans

Investment Advisory Group is proud to partner with The PFE Group to provide a full range of retirement plan services.

Today's retirement plan fiduciaries must deal with a more complex investment environment than their predecessors. SEC and States Attorney General investigations of fund companies, brokerage firms and 401(k) service providers, and now the investment consultants who advise plans and their fiduciaries, raise serious questions about objectivity and independence. Couple these concerns with a dizzying array of investment options and products, from individual securities to commingled pools and mutual funds of every conceivable type, and it's not surprising that plan fiduciaries are turning to investment consultants who can assist them in meeting ERISA's "prudent expert" rule. Ultimately, the decision to retain a consultant is all about trust.

The PFE Group has a search and asset placement compensation philosophy which is simple and unambiguous: Our ONLY compensation is from plan sponsors. We never accept compensation, in any form, from investment firms.

Why such a strong commitment to independence? It's simple--where money is involved, it is impossible to remain completely objective if your compensation is tied to the advice you give. The PFE Group prefers to price its services competitively and let the end result speak for itself.

Investment Selection/Monitoring Process

Selecting investments for a retirement plan requires a number of process steps to ensure a quality and compliant conclusion. While The PFE Group utilizes an extremely thorough proprietary process for selecting investment managers, our process is flexible enough to incorporate Committee member preferences.

For defined contribution plans, our process ensures review, analysis and if needed:

  • Development of Committee Charter and Investment Policy to ensure search compliance and consistency
  • Establishment of investment manager selection criteria
  • Development of plan asset allocation risk/reward profiles
  • Renegotiation of vendor agreements to accommodate least costly share class
  • Development of transition plan and exit strategy for transferring assets

For defined benefit plans, we perform most of the process steps for defined contribution plans, complimented by the following:

  • Asset/liability modeling and required actuarial return analysis
  • Development of asset allocation (and risk/reward) profiles
  • Development of manager universe (separate account, pooled, mutual fund, private equity, etc.)
  • Trust and custody implications

Evaluating Investment Fund Performance

Some of the over 200 criteria used to evaluate managers include:

  • Investment returns
  • Style adherence since inception
  • Expenses (deconstruction of ratios by share class)
  • Fund firm ownership, regulatory compliance and sanctions (SEC, AG, or Class Action)
  • Risk/reward statistics including industry ratings, category rankings, and MPT statistics

Retirement Plan Vendor Search

Our Mission

The evolution of retirement plan administration has been startling. Just five short years ago, outsourcing defined benefit pension plan administration was written off as too costly, cumbersome and confusing. Today, plan sponsors of almost any size can outsource not only 401(k) administration, but most other benefit services, as well.

But how can you determine if outsourcing is right for your organization? Which plans should be in-sourced, out-sourced or co-sourced? And, if out-sourcing proves feasible, how should an organization approach evaluating and selecting vendors? Finally, and possibly, most importantly, how and when should retirement plan assets - defined contribution and/or defined benefit - factor into your decision process?

Regardless of where you are in your evaluation, PFE can help.

Our Experience

PFE has over eight years experience assisting clients with the evaluation and implementation of outsourcing strategies. We start by learning your business objectives and employee demographics. Next, using our considerable vendor search experience and knowledge of your specific retirement, compensation and benefit programs, recommend an effective and efficient outsourcing solution.

Our past projects have included many traditional and non-traditional search assignments:

  • IRC 401(k), 401(a), 403(b), 457(b), 457(f)
  • Money Purchase, Profit Sharing, New Comparability, ESOP
  • Pension (traditional, cash balance, pension equity); active and frozen; non-bargained and bargained
  • Pension Actuarial
  • Retiree Health Care
  • Employee Stock Purchase Plans (IRC 423)
  • Executive Financial Planning
  • Credit Union (corporate sponsored)

Our Process

  • Evaluate your organization's current retirement benefits, administrative environment, costs (external and internal) and qualify your outsourcing needs,
  • Educate and advise plan fiduciaries on administration options, vendors, potential cost savings, etc.,
  • Establish vendor search criteria and qualified vendor universe,
  • Prepare Request for Proposals (RFP) and evaluate submissions,
  • Analyze current and potential investment options (and strategies) for defined contribution and defined benefit plans,
  • Negotiate fee and service arrangements, and
  • Provide conversion and employee communication/education support.

With our backgrounds in retirement plan design, employee benefits administration, investment analysis, personal financial planning and education, The PFE Group is uniquely qualified to handle almost any search assignment.