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Russell Investment Group has achieved a series of industry-leading rankings in the 2005 Transition Management Surveys sponsored by Plan Sponsor and Global Investor magazines. In both surveys institutional investors from around the world, including Australasia, rated transition management providers across a range of transition activities and expertise.

In the Plan Sponsor survey, in 12 possible categories, Russell received top ranking in 4 and achieved 11 “Best in Class” awards for Transition Services. Russell surpassed all other industry participants in cumulative results and number of first place rankings in the survey. Russell received No.1 rankings for quality of operational support, review of alternative strategies, communication of execution progress and personnel providing advice.

“We have built our transition service on innovation and accountability with the ultimate goal of representing the client's interest,” said Gemma Dooley, Manager, Russell Implementation Services, Australasia. “It’s gratifying that this industry survey would rate Russell as a leader across the full spectrum of transition services. Such recognition, along with the infrastructure that we have in place and the breadth of liquidity we can access, reaffirms our commitment to move this industry forward in professionalism and client service.”

In 2004, Russell managed the transition of A$300 billion in assets for clients across the globe, a 19% increase from the previous year and continues to set the mark for delivering on T Standard-compliant investment performance of assets in transition. For more than a decade, Russell has been at the forefront of improving transition management practices and technique, encouraging the development of the T Standard as an objective performance measurement to aid clients in assessing a transition manager’s performance.

Russell helps clients improve their net investment returns by providing robust implementation management to multi-manager portfolios. Transition management, commission management, policy implementation and agency currency execution are a few of the growing implementation services offered by Russell. For three decades, this Russell implementation services division has been researching the discovery and implementation of techniques designed to minimise the cost of strategic changes by Russell clients. This team of specialists handles implementation issues for clients worldwide that represent over A$7 trillion in assets.

“Transition management is no longer an afterthought for Australian institutional investors, just as it not for institutional investors in other parts of the world. In this market environment, transitions have become too important not to be subject to the same rigorous and consistent performance measurement expected in traditional investment management,” said Dooley. “Russell has developed and strongly advises the T Standard because clients deserve a uniform and transparent measure to evaluate portfolio performance at all stages of a transition.”

Russell also recently received high ranking in an earlier transition management survey sponsored by Global Investor magazine. Respondents who used multiple transition providers gave Russell top rankings for best overall service, best analysis, best reporting capabilities and importantly most accurate shortfall estimation. A shortfall estimate provides an indication of the likely impact on fund performance from the transition. “Clients need to have confidence that a transition manager will deliver on their performance estimate. Russell has been shown to provide the most accurate shortfall estimate in the industry”, says Dooley.