Product & Service Launches – 10/24/24

Morgan Stanley Closes Private Markets Fund With $2B Committed

Morgan Stanley Investment Management has secured $2 billion in committed capital for its new North Haven Tactical Value II Fund LP.

The fund invests in credit, hybrid investments and non-controlling equity investments across sectors and geographical regions. The capital raise drew both institutional and qualified individuals and is nearly 50% more of a raise than its predecessor fund, NHTV I, the firm noted.

Thomas Cahill and Pedro Teixeira, co-heads of Morgan Stanley’s tactical value investing, billed the fund as being “a highly diversified portfolio of uncorrelated investments unconstrained by the narrower mandates of traditional private equity or private credit strategies.”

Gainbridge Non-Tax-Deferred Annuities Available at RetireOne

Annuity seller Gainbridge, a Group 1001 company, has partnered with distributor RetireOne to offer Gainbridge’s annuities to registered investment advisers.

RIAs can now access through RetireOne two Gainbridge high-yield, multi-year guaranteed annuity products, Fastbreak and SteadyPace. The firms noted in the announcement that RetireOne is the “first outsourced insurance desk” to offer non-tax-deferred annuity products.

“Gainbridge Life offers multi-year guaranteed annuity products that are a game-changer for our advisor network,” RetireOne President Jeff Cusack said in a statement. “With SteadyPace and FastBreak, our clients can access some of the highest yields in the industry, coupled with the security and principal protection they expect.”

FastBreak and SteadyPace have fixed rates as high as 5.50% annual percentage yield, according to the firms.

Transamerica’s Managed Advice Now Available to Contractor’s PEP

Transamerica Corp. announced its managed advice offering will be the exclusive offering to the Contractors Plan, a $2 billion pooled employer plan administering retirement benefits to nearly 1,500 employers and more than 64,500 workers.

The offering comes through an expanded partnership between Transamerica and third-party administrator Fringe Benefit Group Inc., which is administering the PEP. Through the expanded partnership, FBG will offer to plan participants Transamerica’s managed account offering that includes a multilingual website, retirement planning tools and a menu of investment options for their retirement plans.

“We are excited to expand this collaboration, leveraging our pooled plan capabilities as a scalable and efficient model for new plan growth,” Darren Zino, Transamerica’s head of retirement distribution, said in a statement. “We will lean into FBG and The Contractors Plan’s incredible network to enable us to expand retirement plans and service offerings to even more hardworking Americans.”

FBG has a history of creating benefit programs for government contractors, restaurants, retail and staffing companies.

OneDigital Launches New Benefits Platform

OneDigital has brought a new, all-in-one benefits platform to market for employers.

The offering, Impact Studio, gives employers a platform to track and manage total spending on health and benefits, retirement, wages and salaries. It also “maximizes employer spending by aligning investment to benchmarking and employee value,” according to the announcement.

OneDigital touted the new system’s ability to help benefits managers with employee turnover and clear messaging and administration of employee offerings to attract and retain talent.

“By integrating medical, ancillary, stop loss and retirement benchmarking tools with other functionalities such as claims utilization and employee value perception insights, Impact Studio gives OneDigital consultants and their clients greater visibility into their benefits programs, enabling the ability to control costs and drive impact for their employees,” the firm wrote in the announcement.