Investments: archive
Every Investments story in Retirement, newest first. 43 stories
2 stories
SEI to build CITs carrying Carlyle private equity for Basic Capital plans
The first trust will blend public equity with Carlyle private equity and is designed to sit inside a participant's existing large-cap equity allocation.
Private equity tops public pension returns for 14th consecutive year, AIC finds
Private equity's median 10-year annualized return across the 200 funds studied was 13.2%, against 10.58% for public equities.
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Devenir: invested HSA balances top $100 billion, 52% of assets
Only 11% of HSAs hold investments, yet they account for 59% of HSA assets.
1 story
Ascensus launches referral platform routing 401(k) savers to plan advisers
The recordkeeper, which administers more than $1.3 trillion for more than 16 million savers, expects 18 to 20 partner firms live on the platform within a year.
1 story
InvestmentNews: Only 12% of retirement savers have enough to last ten years or more
The article says private equity, private credit and real assets can add long-term growth, income and diversification, with retirements that may span 30 to 40 years.
1 story
Legacy provision nearly doubled near-retirees' interest in an annuity in a $500,000 scenario: DCIIA study for Allspring
The same study found 70% of near-retirees say they trust their employer on plan design, and 56% expect to move workplace savings at retirement.
3 stories
Morningstar launches Direct AI agents for product, distribution and manager research
The browser-based platform draws on Morningstar's ratings and 1,100 analysts; one agent analyzes portfolios holding public and private securities.
Alto agrees to acquire Forge Trust, adding more than 60,000 private-market IRA accounts
Alto says the combined businesses would hold more than $20 billion in assets under custody and administration; financial terms were not disclosed.
Transamerica pooled plans reach $34.2 billion, shifting the focus to retirement income
The recordkeeper's pooled assets are up more than 60% in five years, and its research finds 48% of employers without a plan would consider joining one.
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Alto to buy Forge Trust from Schwab, combining over $20 billion in retirement assets
The agreement, pending approval by the South Dakota Division of Banking, would put more than 60,000 self-directed IRA accounts with private-market assets on one platform.
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Invesco's Sergio Marcheli says many 401(k) menus have drifted toward growth
He tells the 401(k) Specialist podcast that holding both styles across market capitalizations lets participants follow leadership shifts without timing cycles.
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Nuveen closes $13 billion Schroders deal, creating a $2.6 trillion manager
The TIAA-owned firm will keep Schroders as a separate unit for 12 to 18 months and reorganize a combined $400 billion private-markets book by asset class.
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Fidelity's real estate debt fund files $451 million; Värde and Barings leave size blank
Invesco's summer poll put defined contribution participants at 3.4 out of 5 on naming private assets, leaving the education job to target-date funds.
Fidelity files $451 million real estate debt fund; Northern Trust files $33 billion vehicle
The platform-scale filers arrived with numbers, while Värde and Barings filed credit vehicles with names and no stated size in the same 48 hours.
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AllianceBernstein hands its CEO job to its distribution chief
The succession puts a target-date and DC manager in the hands of an executive built on client coverage and private markets, leaving the retirement menu a defensive position.
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Invesco participants score 3.4 out of 5 on naming private assets
Demand for private markets in DC plans has now been measured twice; the summer poll shows participants cannot identify the assets they say they want, which pushes the education job onto the target-date fund.
HSA assets climb 19% on fee cuts the law didn't deliver
Growth is coming from lower fees and brokerage windows rather than expanded eligibility, while four in five employees never buy a fund.
CITs answer to bank examiners. Sponsors answer for the rest.
Collective investment trusts won the default slot with no SEC registration, which puts the monitoring file, not the fee quote, at the center of the decision.
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CFA Institute's private-markets math argues for TDF sleeves, not menu slots
Three of five private asset classes cost retirement wealth in the CFA Institute's modeling, which is precisely the argument for putting them inside a glidepath rather than on a self-directed menu.
3 stories
Participants say yes to private markets; committees still own the default
Invesco's survey finds 65% of participants want a private-markets sleeve in their target-date fund, but the 58% who accept the fee trade-off is the figure the shelf will actually turn on.
CFA Institute splits 401(k) private markets into return and ballast
A small private allocation can pay off in a DC plan, but only two of the five asset classes modeled beat a plain stock-and-bond baseline, and that arithmetic has consequences for how sponsors should buy the category.
Active management's DC case now runs through the shelf
MFS's Jeri Savage says concentration has reopened the active-passive question in 401(k) lineups; the recordkeepers who build the defaults will settle it.
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The $51.2 trillion retirement quarter was a market print
A 15% equity quarter restored $3.8 trillion to household retirement balances, and the only behavioral line ICI publishes says the money keeps leaving DC plans—though the arithmetic says most of the widening was mark to market.
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BlackRock's LifePath Solutions moves the sale from funds to construction
The framework lets sponsors assemble a pension-style glide path inside the 401(k) default, shifting the contest from fund selection to who owns the construction.
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EBRI's $20.2 billion prices the match sponsors skipped
The participation gap opens at enrollment and the balance gap peaks two decades later, leaving a single threshold as the plan-design decision sponsors have not made.
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Great Gray rents the diligence half of its private markets CITs
Six private markets CIT shelves have been announced in roughly five months, and Great Gray's split with iCapital shows which half the industry thinks is scarce.
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The managed account becomes the default
Contribution data and the DOL alternatives proposal are pushing participant-level discretion from the a la carte side of the menu to the center of plan design.
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Millennials lead Schwab SDBA growth, but boomers still hold largest balances
Average balances hit $396,767, but Millennials still hold roughly a quarter of what boomers do.
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Constitution's Horizon CIT puts PE on the 401(k) menu
The new trust answers the liquidity question with a dedicated sleeve; the size of that buffer and the $1 billion pipeline are the open tests.
Target-date funds have won the DC lineup
Auto-enrollment pushed 61% of Vanguard participants into a single target-date fund; the harder problem is turning those balances into income.
Constitution Capital's Horizon CIT puts daily-priced PE inside Principal plans
Opened with more than $50 million and near-term commitments above $1 billion, the trust is the clearest test yet of private equity built for the daily-priced 401(k).
Private credit files its own ticket onto the DC menu
Four DC-bound private-credit vehicles in one week, from Ares, Shenkman, StepStone, and Jana, mark a shift from recordkeeper CITs to fund sponsors' own shelves.
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Principal packages private markets into managed CITs
The recordkeeper is targeting the 3 percent of DC assets in private markets by attaching its oversight and monitoring to target-date CITs.
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Managed accounts' payoff is a plan design story
Morningstar's new research finds the biggest contribution gaps in voluntary enrollment plans, suggesting managed accounts work best where plan design leaves the work to participants.
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401(k) plans keep dropping active domestic equity funds
A review of 11-K filings shows active domestic equity funds accounted for a large share of 2025 lineup changes, with consultants blaming the category's persistent struggles in a fee-first market.
The 60/40's bond cushion is broken. Target-date funds are next.
Plan sponsors should stress-test late-career glidepaths against 2022, when bonds fell with equities and the classic portfolio lost 16.64%.
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T. Rowe Price buys F/m to strengthen target-date fixed income
The $19 billion deal adds ETF and managed-account capabilities to its retirement business.
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Target-date assets top $5.3 trillion as income options climb
Sway Research's mid-year report shows 11% first-half growth, with income-linked target-dates up 18%.
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Equities carry institutional plans to strongest quarter in years
Foundations and endowments led with a 7.0% median return, but the S&P 500's 15.2% gain did the heavy lifting.
Alto launches a single-workflow private-market platform for RIAs
The self-directed IRA custodian is betting that operational friction, not client demand, has kept private-market deals out of retirement accounts.