Information on the U.S.'s 1,000 largest retirement plan sponsors as of Sept. 30, 2013, was published Monday. Several new data points were included in the survey: fixed-income portfolio duration, defined benefit assets by investment vehicle, custom and off-the-shelf target-date assets and several others. The new information helps shed more light on the U.S. retirement marketplace, whose assets increased to an all-time high of $8.3 trillion.
A significant divergence in fixed-income durations can be seen between corporate and public plan sponsors. The average corporate plan sponsor's fixed-income portfolio had a duration of almost 14, while the average public plan sponsor was a little more than 5.
For the first time, Pension & Investments asked whether sponsors had policies encouraging the hiring of money managers owned by women, minorities, the disabled or veterans; 34.5% of plans responded yes to the question.
Of the firms that responded to the custom or off-the-shelf target-date fund question, 26 used custom strategies while 85 used off-the-shelf strategies. Excluding the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, assets were roughly split evenly between the two.
