Pentegra Retirement Services, a manager of retirement plans with $500,000 to $30 million in assets, hired State Street Global Advisors to manage its $1 billion in defined contribution index fund assets for Pentegra clients, the company said. Those funds were shifted to SSgA by mid-December, said Gwen Burroughs, White Plains, N.Y.-based Pentegra's chief marketing officer, in a telephone interview. She declined to identify the previous manager. The depth and breadth of SSgA's institutional index fund lineup, providing participants with a "full risk spectrum across all asset classes," was a key factor in selecting the firm, she said.
While Pentegra assets for its DC clients account for less than one-third of the firm's more than $3 billion in overall plan assets, Ms. Burroughs said that sector is experiencing growth of 20% to 30% a year.
Michael Dalis, director of institutional subadvisory services at SSgA, said his firm had roughly $16 billion in subadvisory assets going into the competition for the Pentegra mandate. He said SSgA can deliver its strategies through collective funds, which offer advantages in terms of flexibility and costs over individual funds.
