tailieunhanh - Key Information on Target Date Funds as Default Investments Should Be Provided to Plan Sponsors and Participants

Information asymmetry can be reduced via three ways: a firm’s ability to signal its credit worthiness (incl. an institutional assessment or rating by an independent agency and the provision of collateral), a strong relationship between lender and borrower, and through due diligence/lenders’ examination (screening). However, this means on the other hand that new or young firms, with a lack of collateral and by definition without track record are the ones with the greatest degree of difficulty accessing debt capital (Equinox, 2002). Micro-enterprises, young companies or start-ups by definition have no track record, often only limited collateral, and no long standing. | United States Government Accountability Office GAO Report to Congressional Requesters January 2011 DEFINED CONTRIBUTION PLANS Key Information on Target Date Funds as Default Investments Should Be Provided to Plan Sponsors and Participants GAO-11-118 January 2011 À GAO Accountability Integrity Reliability Highlights Highlights of GAO-11-118 a report to the congressional requesters Why GAO Did This Study To promote the adoption of appropriate default investments by retirement plans that automatically enroll workers in 2007 the Department of Labor DOL identified three qualified default investment alternatives. One of these options target date funds TDF has emerged as by far the most popular default investment. TDFs are designed to provide an age-appropriate asset allocation for plan participants over time. Because of recent concerns about significant losses in and differences in the performance of some TDFs GAO was asked address the following questions 1 To what extent do the investment compositions of TDFs vary 2 what is known about the performance of TDFs 3 how do plan sponsors select and monitor TDFs that are chosen as the plan s default investment and what steps do they take to communicate information on these funds to their participants and 4 what steps have DOL and the Securities and Exchange Commission SEC taken to ensure that plan sponsors appropriately select and use TDFs To answer these questions GAO reviewed available reports and data and interviewed TDF managers plan sponsors relevant federal officials and others. What GAO Recommends GAO recommends that DOL take actions to assist plan sponsors in selecting TDFs to best suit their employees and to ensure that plan participants have access to essential information about TDFs. DOL raised a number of issues with our recommendations and we amended one of them in response to their comments. View GAO-11-118 or key components. For more information contact Charles A. Jeszeck 202 512-7215 jeszeckc@. DEFINED .