Products July 9, 2008

Prudential Guide Helps with Plan Enrollment Decisions

Prudential Financial, Inc., debuted a newly designed personalized enrollment guide that delivers simplified, reader-friendly content for participants in defined contribution plans who are transitioning to Prudential Retirement or for new hires joining existing plans.
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According to a Prudential announcement, its Retirement Workbook is structured by plan type for participants in 401(k), 403(b), 457, 401(a), and multi-employer plans. The format of the Retirement Workbook introduces participants to all aspects of their retirement plan, with the following features:

  • personalized, targeted information based on the options available in their plan;
  • retirement income projections to ease participants’ retirement planning decisions;
  • support for “auto-plan solutions’ such as automatic enrollment, contribution accelerator, and asset allocation tools, if these options are available as part of their plan.

The workbook also allows sponsors to create a custom look and feel, including tailored cover designs, and is available in Spanish upon request, the announcement said. The workbook leads readers to Prudential’s Online Retirement Center where they can access the Retirement Income Calculator and encourages access to Prudential Retirement’s education and planning Web site (PREP) to take advantage of a variety of financial tools.

More information is available at www.prudential.com.

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Products July 9, 2008

PIMCO Announces Bond Fund 'Un-tethered' from Benchmark

PIMCO announced the launch of the PIMCO Unconstrained Bond Fund (UBF), which uses the firm's investment process and is not tethered to benchmark-specific guidelines.
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The UBF is managed by PIMCO Managing Director and Portfolio Manager Chris Dialynas. The ticker symbol for the fund is PFIUX, according to the company.

Benefits of the UBF for investors include:

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  • Traditional characteristics of a core bond fund such as limited downside risk, low correlation with equities, liquidity and diversification;
  • Potential to outperform traditional active fixed-income management approaches where the manager may be expected to limit tracking error relative to a benchmark;
  • May invest in derivative instruments such as options, futures contracts, or swap agreements;
  • May invest in mortgage and asset-backed securities;
  • May invest in securities denominated in foreign currencies;
  • Up to 50% of assets of the UBF can be invested in securities and instruments economically tied to emerging market countries; and
  • Up to 40% of assets of the UBF can be invested in high yield corporate bonds.

“The underlying strategy of the UBF provides greater scope to adjust duration exposure, allocate across sectors, express our active views, and tap into our global fixed income toolkit beyond what is possible with benchmark-oriented funds,” said Dialynas, in a company announcement.

More information is available at www.pimco.com.

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