Investment Consulting Services to Pension Plans
Goal
To help plan sponsors of defined benefit plans properly manage their fiduciary risk while optimizing the pension plan’s net investment performance.
Services
Our professional consulting team designs client focused evaluations, planning and programming that addresses the following areas of plan sponsor responsibilities:
- Review and analyze the pension plan’s structural design and effectiveness in supporting the sponsor’s purposes and long-term retirement goals for their employees,
- Evaluate the cost/benefits of re-structuring the pension plan to reduce employer costs in the future and improve employee appreciation for the program,
- Assist plan sponsors in complying with ERISA,
- Design Trustee educational programs on fiduciary responsibilities, investment planning, policy development and management, asset allocation and investment performance analysis,
- Analyze program costs and support client/vendor negotiations to improve efficiency,
- Search for and evaluate investment managers, actuaries, administrators, bundled service providers and custodian banks,
- Provide evaluation of investment performance to include compliance with policy guidelines,
- Comparisons of asset allocation and investment performance against policy benchmark and peer universe,
- Conduct asset/liability studies,
- Develop investment programs that incorporate the plan’s current funding status and future liabilities, including our recently developed ‘bucketed’ approach to Liability Driven Investing (LDI),
- Model strategic asset allocation that incorporate the risk and return objectives of the trustees, and
- Stress testing of the investment plan to project “what-if” scenarios for interest rate changes or market disruptions and the impact these events may have on the investment portfolio.