The Vanguard Group of Investment Cos., Malvern, Pa., has set up an in-house service group to provide advisory and portfolio review services directly to smaller defined benefit, endowment and foundation clients.
Vanguard Fiduciary Services will offer such services as analysis and attribution on a time- and dollar-weighted basis, said Shelton Unger, a principal and head of institutional sales and marketing. Until now, these services were available only if clients went through their administrative client service representative.
"Basically, the driver for Vanguard Fiduciary Services was our clients, who were asking us for more asset allocation advice. One client in particular wanted us to manage and invest their whole defined benefit plan for them among our funds, and we figured out a way ..." said Ms. Unger.
Vanguard also is beta testing an asset allocation service for organizations that want to invest all of the fund's assets with Vanguard. In the coming months, Vanguard internal "counselors" will be able to assume full investment management of a plan, making all asset allocation decisions and automatically rebalancing the portfolio. The service is similar to what Vanguard offers to retail investors and will offer to selected defined contribution plans later this year.
