Deals & People August 16, 2010

Transamerica Teams with AllianceBernstein to Launch Dynamic Allocation Fund

Transamerica Asset Management Group says it will offer the Transamerica AllianceBernstein Dynamic Allocation VP fund. 
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The fund, which is sub-advised by AllianceBernstein L.P., has approximately $70 million in assets and is offered in two classes: Initial Class and Service Class with net operating expenses of 82 bps and 107 bps respectively, according to the announcement.

The fund’s investment objective is to seek capital appreciation and current income, and it utilizes a Dynamic Asset Allocation strategy, which makes short-term adjustments to the fund’s asset mix of individual securities, underlying exchange traded funds, forwards, swaps and futures “to achieve targeted exposure to domestic equities, international equities, domestic bonds, international bonds and foreign currency,” according to a press release.  “This approach seeks to generate improved returns per unit of volatility, as compared to those from fixed weight or rules-based models,” according to the announcement.

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“Our investment manager selection process enabled us to identify this strategy offered by AllianceBernstein,” stated John K. Carter, Transamerica Asset Management, Inc.’s President and CEO. “We believe this fund offering will provide an investment solution that offers less volatility and competitive returns.”

Transamerica Capital, Inc. will lead the distribution effort for the fund which will be offered through Transamerica and other affiliated variable annuity contracts and variable life insurance policies.

 

Deals & People August 16, 2010

RPAG Adds MPI’s Stylus Web to Scorecards

Retirement Plan Advisory Group (RPAG) has partnered with investment research and technology provider Markov Processes International (MPI) to enhance RPAG’s Scorecard System Generator.
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RPAG has integrated MPI’s Stylus Web, a manager research and reporting tool that provides advisers with institutional-quality manager analysis and returns-based style analysis , holdings-based information, and other performance-based analytics to its Scorecard System Generator, an open architecture application that ranks more than 15,000 funds, 30 asset classes, and 65 vendor products.

MPI’s Stylus Web Utilized alongside RPAG’s proprietary Scorecard System, the new tool empowers advisers to run individual manager reports with the freedom to change variable time periods, benchmarks, and peer groups.

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“We are continually seeking ways to add value to our integrated practice management platform,” said Jeff Elvander, Chief Investment Officer of Retirement Plan Advisory Group. “MPI’s Stylus Web affords RPAG members a highly customized investment analytics tool, which in turn enables them to deliver even deeper, more meaningful consulting services to their plan sponsor clients.”

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