PRT Window of Opportunity Is Open

Defined benefit plan sponsors have a window of opportunity to take action on pension risk.

Pension plans experienced an incredible recovery in 2013 making pension risk transfer more feasible and less costly for plan sponsors. In addition, potential future developments could increase the cost to maintain pension plans as well as the cost to transfer pension liability, meaning plan sponsors would do well to make risk transfer moves now.

There are steps plan sponsors can take to better prepare their plans for pension risk transfer, noted by Chip Conradi, treasurer and vice president of tax at Clorox, who spoke about risk management strategies executed by the company during a webcast sponsored by Mercer.

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A couple of years ago, the company did a total rewards review, and as part of that analysis, decided its pension plan would be frozen. Clorox wanted to reduce the effect of volatility of pension funding on its financial position, so it worked with Mercer on a liability-driven investing (LDI) strategy.

Conradi said Clorox implemented a glide path strategy guided by certain triggers. For example, at 70% funded, the company changed the plan’s asset allocation to hold 45% bonds, 80% funded triggered a move to 50% bonds, another even triggered a move to 55% bonds, and the next trigger is an 85% funded status.

One problem the company had was educating the pension committee, according to Conradi. He explained many committee members didn’t understand why they would move to more bonds in a high interest rate environment. But, the firm educated the committee to change members’ focus from asset performance to managing the gap between assets and liabilities.

“Committee members are familiar with investment success, but what about risk management success?” Conradi queried. By hedging against interest rate movement and removing some equity risk from the plan, the plan’s funded status volatility was reduced from 11% to 6%.

De-risking did not have a significant effect on plan expense, Conradi said. The company has not made any contributions to the plan since the introduction of the glidepath, yet volatility risk is reduced, and funded status has increased.

Gordon Fletcher and Richard McEvoy, Mercer pension risk experts, explained as plans progress down the risk management path, they change the composition of their plan’s hedge portfolio—portfolio of bonds to match liabilities. The hedge portfolio becomes richer as the plan moves along the glide path; it includes a mix of credit and treasuries, and uses duration-matched bonds.

But, LDI strategies are not set and forget, they warned webcast attendees. During market stress, the hedge starts to unravel, bonds can be downgraded and possibly default. The plan’s liability may be unchanged, but assets are hit and it reduces the plan’s funded status. The key is active management of the credit portfolio and active management of the split between credits and treasuries, they said.

Improved funding as a result of LDI strategies enables defined benefit plan sponsors to take a closer look at pension risk transfer. Fletcher and McEvoy explained that a pension buyout currently has a premium of 8% above the plan’s accounting liability, while offering a lump-sum window to certain participants will only cost employers the plan liability for those participants. A lump-sum window for terminated vested participants offers a financially attractive option. However, the cost of maintaining a plan’s liability on the company’s balance sheet has risen, while the cost of transferring to an annuity has decreased, so plan sponsors should consider what is best for their plans.

Plan sponsors should also consider what may be coming down the regulatory pipeline, Geoff Manville, from Mercer’s Washington Resource Group, told webcast attendees.

He said the issue of derisking has become an active discussion in the policy community in Washington, D.C. The Treasury and PBGC have made it clear they have concerns about offering lump sums to those who have already commenced annuity payments. Although they have not stated a public position yet, Manvilled said there’s a chance they will soon. He notes that it will not affect lump sum offers to terminated vested participants not currently taking an annuity; that law is settled.

In addition, Manville noted the Department of Labor is looking at recommendations from the ERISA Advisory Council made late last year (see “ABC Testifies on Pension De-Risking”). Those recommendations include: clarify the “safest available” annuity rule applies to any purchase by a defined benefit plan; more disclosure and a minimum 90-day decision time frame for lump sum windows; clarify consequences of fiduciary breach in selecting an annuity buy-out carrier; and provide education and outreach to plan sponsors.

Manville said no relevant bills have been introduced in Congress, but a coming Government Accountability Office (GAO) report could prompt a legislative response. Finally, he noted that state lawmakers are looking at model legislation that would place costly new requirements on state-regulated insurers providing annuities to qualified defined benefit plans.

Vanguard Touts Five Ways to Boost Returns

Following best practices can secure an extra 3% in net returns for the clients of advisers, according to Vanguard Advisor.

Vanguard says it can help advisers implement these best practices through its wealth management platform, Vanguard Advisor’s Alpha. The platform provides assistance on portfolio construction, behavioral coaching, asset location, and other relationship-oriented service to help advisers increase net returns for their clients. 

The platform is the subject of a new research paper, “Putting a Value on Your Value: Quantifying Vanguard Advisor Alpha,” which examines the individual best practices within the Advisor’s Alpha framework and quantifies the value advisers can add relative to others who are not employing such practices.

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Calculating how much an adviser can add in net returns is based mainly on their approach to five wealth management principles. (The exact amount may vary depending on client circumstances and implementation.)

Vanguard recommends that an adviser add value in the following ways:

  • Be an effective behavioral coach. Helping clients maintain a long-term perspective and a disciplined approach is arguably one of the most important elements of financial advice. (Potential value add: up to 1.50%.)
  • Apply an asset-location strategy. Allocating assets between taxable and tax-advantaged accounts is one tool an adviser can employ that can add value each year. (Potential value add: from 0% to 0.75%.)
  • Employ cost-effective investments. This critical component of every adviser’s tool kit is based on simple math: Gross return less costs equals net return. (Potential value add: up to 0.45%.)
  • Maintain the proper allocation through rebalancing. Over time, as its investments produce various returns, a portfolio will likely drift from its target allocation. An adviser can add value by ensuring that the portfolio’s risk/return characteristics stay consistent with a client’s preferences. (Potential value add: up to 0.35%.)
  • Implement a spending strategy. As the retiree population grows, an adviser can help clients make important decisions about how to spend from their portfolios. (Potential value add: up to 0.70%.)

Improving Investor Outcomes

How an adviser approaches two additional principles, asset allocation and total return versus income investing, can also add value, but are too specific to each investor to quantify.

The Vanguard Advisor’s Alpha framework incorporates all of these principles, making it possible for advisers to add up to about 3% in net returns for their clients. This figure should not be viewed as an annual add, however. Vanguard’s research emphasizes that it is more likely to be intermittent, as some of the most significant opportunities to add value occur during periods of market duress or euphoria that tempt clients to abandon their well-thought-out investment plans.

In such circumstances, the adviser may have the opportunity to add tens of percentage points, rather than merely basis points. Although this wealth creation will not show up on any client statement, it is real and represents the difference in clients’ performance if they stay invested according to their plan as opposed to abandoning it.

“We believe advisers have the opportunity to meaningfully improve investor outcomes, and we are pleased to be able to provide advisers a mechanism to demonstrate their value to clients in a quantifiable manner,” said Francis Kinniry Jr., one of the study’s authors and a principal in Vanguard’s Investment Strategy Group. “As the industry continues to evolve from a commission-based to a fee-based model, advisers who successfully explain their value have more time to serve clients, leading to increased client satisfaction and retention.”

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