The RTD Client
Our clients come from established companies and professional practices that have experienced continued success. As business owners and plan sponsors of their company’s 401(k) plans, our clients share a desire to help strengthen the financial future of their employees and their company.
They discovered that their previous 401(k) plan no longer met their needs, the needs of their employees, and they were looking for an efficient cost effective plan that meets today’s requirements and flexible enough to meet tomorrow’s challenges.
Fiduciary Services
“Plan [fiduciaries] are ill-equipped for their jobs…
either on account of potential conflicts of interest
or ignorance about their responsibilities”
-The Wall Street Journal
RTD Financial Advisors, Inc. [RTD] is committed to assisting 401(k) plan sponsors in meeting their fiduciary responsibility. We provide on-going fiduciary services and support to plan trustees and the plan’s retirement committee by reviewing all areas of a plan’s management. Providing plan design, participant education, cost benchmarking, and investment recommendations; RTD’s advisory service helps you control your fiduciary risk.
Our services include the on-going review for:
- ERISA Section 404(c) compliance
- Disclosure of all fees and compensation
- Creation and adoption of an Investment Policy Statement
- Investment selection
- Participant education
- Retirement Committee meetings and meeting minutes
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Participant Education & Enrollment Services
“93% of plan participants
believe that
‘unbiased investment advice
is important or very important,’
yet only 6% feel their employer
is doing an excellent job
of providing this.”1
While today’s 401(k) plans utilize the internet and other recent advancements to offer more features and services, participants are still woefully unprepared to make informed investment decisions. 36% of participants in self directed 401(k) plans invest in only one fund, 19% are in only two funds, and 80% have never rebalanced their account. 64% of plan participants feel their company is providing average to poor education about their retirement plan.1
For employers, this knowledge gap that plan participants have in investing is not without risk. High profile failures, such as Enron and Global Crossing, put even greater pressure on employers to offer sound 401(k) plans. From a practical perspective, better educated participants should make better investment decisions, resulting in greater job satisfaction and financial security. From a legal perspective, the Department of Labor routinely admonishes employers to provide investment education and advice to raise the level of investment knowledge of their employees to the appropriate point for selecting among the plan’s investment options. Further, when RTD is selected through a prudent process with periodic monitoring, our clients may be relieved from the liability for the specific investment recommendations made to participants. Before selecting a 401(k) retirement provider, you should ask the following fundamental question:
Who will be responsible
for selecting and monitoring
our plan’s investment options
and providing our
employees with the investment
support they need?
RTD is committed to educating your employees on sound retirement planning and the investment knowledge they will need for their retirement. These are not just enrollment meetings but in-depth educational session. This retirement planning education gets your employees motivated, makes them feel better about their decisions, and most of all - provides them with a more comfortable retirement in the future. After all, isn't that what retirement planning is all about?
Educational materials include:
- Customized enrollment booklets
- Multimedia enrollment presentation
- Wallet cards
- Interactive website
- Website guide
- Comprehensive plan information literature
- Regular education newsletters & investment updates
- Interactive planning tools
Are your employees really prepared
to take on the important responsibility
of choosing their investments?
Enrollment is not a one size fits all solution. A successful 401k solution has an enrollment process that meets the diverse needs of your business or practice. RTD provides the following enrollment services:
- Online enrollment, employee reporting, and fund allocation
- Call center to assist enrollment, investing, and financial planning
- Periodic customized in-person enrollment meetings
- One on one in-person Investment education for plan participants
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Investment Services
In our role as investment advisor, RTD provides valuable investment and planning services. Many 401(k) plan programs offer basic services but RTD’s program provides extensive investment services:
These services include:
- Mutual fund analysis, objective selection and on-going evaluation
- Fiduciary services and support
- Actively-managed asset allocation portfolios
- Participant investment education services
- An Investment Policy Statement
Investment Philosophy
Provide participants who have varying levels
of investment knowledge the ability
to select or create diversified portfolios
that meets their individual
retirement goals.
RTD’s investment objective is to help each employee maximize his or her standard of living in retirement through professional investment services. This objective is accomplished through a systematic investment process that begins with analysis and selection of top quality mutual funds. Using the selected funds, diversified investment portfolios are then constructed and managed to pursue distinct investment objectives.
Self Directed Investment Strategy
This program features a carefully selected group of mutual funds from some of America’s leading mutual fund companies.
From the thousands of mutual funds available through our custodians, RTD’s proprietary selection process provides a collection of best in class investment options representing each major asset class.
Individual funds are analyzed and selected based on the following criteria:
- Security selection and investment style
- Historic performance and ratings
- Experience and tenure of fund management
- Portfolio characteristics
- Suitability for use in an asset allocation strategy
The result of this selection process is an optimal group of mutual funds for retirement investing we call the RTD Self Directed Investment Strategy. The RTD Self Directed Investment Strategy funds span a broad range of investment types and management styles, allowing participants to construct a diversified portfolio to pursue virtually any investment objective in an economic environment.
In addition, each fund within the RTD Self Directed Investment Strategy is subject to continuous professional evaluation. Funds are periodically added to enhance the selection of funds available to plan participants. In some cases, funds are also removed from the RTD Self Directed Investment Strategy due to factors such as poor investment performance, fund management turnover and/or questionable management practices.
Managed Portfolio Strategy
In addition to the RTD Self Directed Investment Strategy, RTD offers five professionally-managed investment portfolios known as the RTD Managed Portfolios. Each RTD Managed Portfolio consists of a strategic blend of mutual funds and is designed to pursue a distinct investment objective ranging from preservation of capital to maximum long-term growth.
Portfolio allocations are opportunistically rebalanced to ensure that each portfolio’s asset mix remains consistent with its stated investment objective, as well as the changing conditions in the economy and financial markets. This active, professional portfolio management improves the chances of achieving each portfolio’s investment objective.
One of the primary advantages of working with RTD is that participants can simply select a suitable RTD Managed Portfolio based on their individual investor profile and can avoid the complicated and intimidating task of constructing and maintaining an appropriately diversified portfolio. Recent surveys1 indicate that the majority of employees prefer the independent, professional management that each portfolio provides.
Professional Investment Advisory Services
To help participants establish their personal retirement savings strategy, RTD provides plan participants with investment guidance from qualified professionals. All of our advisors carry the CFP® designation, the gold standard of financial certification.
These valuable services, usually available only to the most affluent investors, are designed to help each participant maximize their standard of living in retirement. In addition, these services often increase participation and contribution levels among rank-and-file participants, allowing the plan’s highly compensated participants to contribute more money.
“It is our mission to ensure that all of
your participants have the tools and
resources available to assist them in achieving
their retirement savings goals.”
Due Diligence and Monitoring
The Department of Labor considers
plan fiduciaries to be investment experts?
Did you know that you may be held
personally liable for
poor investment performance?
A solid investment due diligence process is critical for plan sponsors, trustees and plan fiduciaries. RTD helps you manage your fiduciary responsibility through our systematic, quantitative, and qualitative investment analysis. We develop a customized Investment Policy Statement (IPS) by discussing and exploring the reasons for installing a 401k plan at your company and then assist you to adhere to your Investment Policy Statement (IPS). The IPS is critical to measure plan performance and is one of the first documents requested by the Department of Labor (DOL) should your plan be audited. The IPS provides a definitive outline of steps that will be taken for the management, review and monitoring of the assets of the plan, and is evidence of the financial stewardship to participants. It also assists in the documentation of all investment decisions by providing a paper trail of policies, procedures, and practices for investment decisions.
The (DOL) requires a prudent approach to the operation of your company’s 401(k) and RTD is there to provide you with continuous monitoring for significant changes or failures in combination with a formal documented annual monitoring review.
RTD Monitoring process includes:
- Monitoring investment choices on an on-going basis to ensure that they remain suitable for the plan.
- Monitoring fees and expenses which can represent the majority of the total 401(k) plan fees. Plans with higher than average fees will produce less money for participants when they retire.
- Monitoring and providing the day-to-day operational aspects of the plan including coordinating plan participant’s requests and question.
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Our belief is a successful 401(k) plan should have a fee structure that is:
- Transparent
- Simple
- Efficient
- Fair
RTD uses an open architecture trust platform that provides for mutual fund revenue reimbursement and cost efficient investment options. Traditionally, plan providers retain mutual fund revenue reimbursements as part of their compensation. RTD believes that every dollar saved in fees provides plan participants a greater opportunity to reach their retirement goals. For further information on RTD’s 401(k)/Self Directed Retirement Plan fees please see our “Fee” tab.
Do you know how much you
are paying for your
plan?
Your RTD Team of Professionals
RTD Dedicated 401(k) Team
- Richard J. Busillo, CFP®, AIF®, RPA
- Amira A. Adams, CRPS®, PPC
- Robert M. McDevitt, AIF®
RTD Enrollment/Ongoing Education Team
- Alan M. Brecher, CFP®, PPC
- Paul A. LaViola, CFP®, ChFC, RPA
- Stephen M. McDade, CFP®
- Henry Cluver, CFP®, ChFC, AIF®
RTD Investment Committee
- Jeff A. Weiand, CFP®, AIF®
- Roy T. Diliberto, CFP®, ChFC
- Michael J. Smith, CFP®
- Marc C. Labadie, CFP®, AIF®
- Christopher Vassallo, CFP®
FOOTNOTE
1. The Pension Research Council, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania