University of Maine System, Bangor, picked TIAA-CREF to be sole record keeper of its defined contribution plans and approved an overhaul of its investment lineup, according to recently released investment committee meeting minutes.
Investment consultant CAPTRUST Financial Advisors, the plan's first external investment consultant, hired in December, recommended at the May 30 meeting that the plan consolidate record keepers to one from four, and that TIAA-CREF should be chosen.
An RFI had been issued earlier this year. Previously, the record keepers were Fidelity Investments, ING U.S. Retirement Services, TIAA-CREF and VALIC.
The 401(a), 403(b) and 457 plans have combined assets of $1.2 billion.
Also at the May 30 meeting, CAPTRUST recommended overhauling the plan's investment lineup, which has more than 300 investment options spread over the four vendors. The new lineup will consist of three tiers: a core lineup of active and passive funds; a target-date fund series; and a mutual fund brokerage window.
The core tier has nine domestic equity funds managed by Eagle Asset Management, Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Harbor Capital Management, John Hancock Funds, Ridgeworth Capital Management, TIAA-CREF, Vanguard Group and Victory Capital Management; three international equity funds managed by MFS Investment Management, Oppenheimer Asset Management and Vanguard; one emerging markets equity fund, managed by Dimensional Fund Advisors; five fixed-income funds managed by PIMCO, TIAA-CREF and Vanguard; and a real estate fund managed by TIAA-CREF.
The committee also approved adopting the Vanguard Retirement TDF Series.
CAPTRUST also had recommended the Vanguard Total Bond Index Signal fund as an option, but the committee decided against including it because of the “current interest rate and bond environment.” However, the committee approved adding the fund to the lineup in the future at the discretion of the DC plan investment subcommittee.
Tracy Elliott, director of finance and controller, said that implementation of the changes is pending certain collective bargaining issues that need to be resolved and there is no specific timetable yet.
