Russell Launches Strategic Review: Integrates pension plan management with corporate-wide risk management processes (Russell.com)

Russell Launches Strategic Review
Integrates pension plan management with corporate-wide risk management processes

Tacoma, WA — October 22, 2007 — Russell Investment Group launched Russell Strategic Review, a new asset allocation process that enables defined benefit plan sponsors to comprehensively evaluate the state of their plan and, importantly, its financial impact on the organization as a whole. Russell Strategic Review builds on this analysis to assist plan sponsors in identifying the full range of their plan objectives and then incorporating those goals through every element of managing and investing their pension fund.

Russell Strategic Review was developed in response to demand for more streamlined yet robust processes for strategically managing pension plans in the wake of the Pension Protection Act (PPA) and the Statement of Financial Accounting Standards 158 (FAS 158). The new offering includes sophisticated asset/liability modeling, liability driven investment strategies, and the design of return-seeking portfolios.

"As new regulations and standards place defined benefit plans on the public stage, plan sponsors need solutions that enable them to fully understand the impact their decisions will have not only on the plan's participants but also on the financial state of the corporation," said Chris DeMeo, director of investment strategy at Russell. "The PPA and FASB changes have added new complexities to pension plan management. With Russell Strategic Review, we offer a highly customizable and flexible solution that can deliver meaningful advice that helps plan sponsors make sense of their financial situation and determine the most strategic way forward."

Russell Strategic Review leverages Russell's thirty-plus years of experience in the pension space and is comprised of three core components:

Needs analysis and data collection: An exercise that goes beyond the pension plan to look at the full organization and its goals and objectives.
Analysis: An evaluation of current contribution policies, investment strategy and asset allocation as well as an integrated risk analysis of benefit, funding, investment and accounting policies and their impact across various measures of corporate and plan-specific risks.
Strategic review and implementation: Helps plan sponsors refine funding policy and investment policy and complements the existing suite of pension management innovations at Russell—Russell Road Map, for framing the investment strategy discussion; Russell Model Portfolio, to provide guidance on ways to implement the chosen strategy; and Russell Pension Navigator™, to assess and consider the impact of potential changes to fund investment and funding policies.

"Russell provides its institutional clients with world-class strategic advice and investment solutions, and the Russell Strategic Review represents another step forward in our ability to deliver these services with a new level of sophistication and flexibility," said Barry McInerney, managing director, investment strategy and services, Russell Investment Group.

About Russell: Russell Investment Group provides strategic advice, world-class implementation, state-of-the-art performance benchmarks and a range of institutional-quality investment products. With more than $230 billion in assets under management, Russell serves individual, institutional and advisor clients in more than 40 countries. Russell provides access to some of the world's best money managers. It helps investors put this access to work in corporate defined benefit and defined contribution plans, and in the life savings of individual investors. Founded in 1936, Russell is a subsidiary of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and headquartered in Tacoma, Wash. Russell has principal offices in Amsterdam, Auckland, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo and Toronto.

Contact:
Jennifer Tice, 253-439-2921
Matt Burkhard, 718-875-2122

Russell Investment Group is a Washington, USA corporation, which operates through subsidiaries worldwide and is a subsidiary of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company.

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First used: October 2007