National Retirement Partners Releases Study On Target Date Funds

CAPISTRANO BEACH, CA, August 16, 2007 -- National Retirement Partners, LLC (NRP), the nation's largest network of independent retirement plan focused advisors with more than 3,000 retirement plans and assets in excess of $27 billion, has released its analysis on Target Date Retirement Funds which includes proprietary research and scoring for the increasingly popular retirement plan investment vehicle.

According to the analysis, The Pension Protection Act becoming law in August 2006 paved the way for even greater acceleration in the level of asset growth and the level of interest in Target Date Funds (TDFs). There are hundreds of TDFs that have been launched in the last two years. TDFs are among the fastest growing type of mutual fund investments, based on statistics reported by the mutual fund families that are public companies.

Ratings for the TDFs were given using a proprietary model, taking several factors into consideration, including calculation of and comparison to a dynamic blended style benchmark, risk adjusted returns, up/down market capture ratios, and expenses. Ratings were tabulated based on monthly data across various timeframes, with longer-term timeframes weighted more heavily than short-term timeframes.

"We initiated this research based on the belief that a robust yet reasonable means of evaluating Target Date Funds was severely lacking in the marketplace," stated James Kitchens, CFA, chief investment officer at NRP. "This is not due to any lack of effort or focus by the industry. Rather, it is a function of the array of vexing difficulties in performing analysis on target date funds," Kitchens elaborated. "Our Member Firms are very excited to have this analysis available for their second quarter review meetings with their clients."

National Retirement Partners President and CEO William R. Chetney stated, "While we realize that the analysis of this type of investment is in its nascent stages, we hope that our research efforts will be useful to plan sponsors and retirement plan consultants alike. The Study is provided exclusively to our member firms and further demonstrates our commitment to provide critical investment research relevant to the retirement industry."

The study is based on data through June 30, 2007 and provides ratings on more than 550 different TDFs. Ratings and dynamic benchmarks are calculated monthly and will be published quarterly.