Deals & People January 16, 2008

FundQuest Hires Director of Retirement Management Solutions

FundQuest, a global provider of managed account investment solutions for financial institutions and advisers, has hired Leslie Prescott as Director of Retirement Management Solutions.
Reported by

Prescott will lead the development of FundQuest’s retirement platform offering, currently available to over 2,000 advisers, according to a press release.

Prescott was previously at Fidelity Investments where she held various positions including Vice President for the Retail Retirement Services group, focusing on rollovers and joint marketing efforts with the Fidelity Brokerage Company. She developed a scalable financial planning offering targeted to employees of Fidelity’s retirement plan sponsor clients, the announcement said.

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Prior to her time with Fidelity Investments, Prescott was a management consultant at CSC Index Group, working with Fortune 500 companies on strategic and operational projects.

“We are eager to see the retirement platform evolve through Leslie’s direction,” said Bob Del Col, Founder and Chairman of FundQuest Incorporated, in the announcement. “We’re confident Leslie’s leadership and experience will enable her to make continuous improvements to the platform to support our current clients and to attract new financial advisory firms for FundQuest’s services.”

FundQuest’s turnkey retirement platform enables financial advisers to deliver advanced planning, implementation, and monitoring services to help individual investors achieve sustainable income during retirement. A white paper, “A Process-Centered Approach to Retirement Income – Best Practices for Institutions and Advisors,’ describes the practical and actionable framework for FundQuest’s platform and is available at www.fundquest.com/press-resea.htm.

Products January 16, 2008

Online 401(k) Adds Auto Plan Features

The Online 401(k) will now offer automatic plan features to its small and single-proprietor business clients.
Reported by

The San Francisco-based firm said the feature is available with The Online 401(k)’s Blue Chip option. Employees will be able to choose to contribute to the plan at the automatic rate using the automatic default investments, contribute to the plan at a self-selected rate using self-selected investments, or opt out of participating.

Employees who are automatically enrolled are signed up at an initial contribution rate of 3%, to increase annually by 1%. If an employee does not select an investment strategy, his or her contributions will be automatically invested in a target-date mutual fund, the company said.

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“For some employees, signing up for a 401(k) plan is an intimidating process,” said Chad Parks, CEO of The Online 401(k), in a company announcement. “Questions about how much to allocate or what to invest in have prevented many individuals from even starting the process. Automatic enrollment makes decisions associated with retirement simple.”

More information can be found at www.theonline401k.com.

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