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CAPTRUST Direct Fiduciary

CAPTRUST Direct Fiduciary®

Direct Fiduciary is a comprehensive program designed for plan sponsors who want to improve plan outcomes, lower costs, outsource responsibilities, and reduce time spent managing their retirement plans.

The Benefits of Direct Fiduciary:

  • Less Time: Reduce the time spent managing the plan
  • Lower Risk: Outsource risk to industry experts
  • Lower Cost: Benefit from CAPTRUST’s scale and expertise
  • Better Employee Outcomes: Access sound financial advice and best-in-class investment options

With Direct Fiduciary, a holistic retirement plan advisor will establish and monitor an appropriate investment menu for your retirement plan and make changes as necessary.

By outsourcing investment fiduciary liability to CAPTRUST, streamlining administrative tasks, and leveraging our scale and expertise, you reduce costs, lower your risk, and save time—so can focus on what’s most important to your business.

Your Direct Fiduciary team is your liaison to CAPTRUST’s best thinking and resources related to plan design, investment management, fiduciary process, participant engagement, and plan administration.

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It’s All in the Details

Holistic Retirement Plan Advisor

Your Direct Fiduciary team is there for you every step of the way—to answer questions, select investment options, monitor investment performance, and deliver retirement plan reviews. As your plan’s investment manager, we keep you up to date on how your plan’s investment menu is performing, make changes as necessary, and share valuable perspectives from CAPTRUST’s dedicated research team, including position papers, topical articles, legislative updates, and the latest capital market views. With Direct Fiduciary, you receive ongoing assistance with the fiduciary responsibilities you can never outsource, including monitoring your plan’s service providers and determining the reasonableness of fees. Think of your Direct Fiduciary team as your liaison to CAPTRUST’s best thinking in terms of plan design, investment management, fiduciary process, participant engagement, and plan administration.

Fiduciary Liability Transfer

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) provides for several types of fiduciaries to help plan sponsors manage or reduce their fiduciary liability. By hiring CAPTRUST and taking advantage of the Direct Fiduciary program, you transfer investment fiduciary liability to CAPTRUST at the highest level possible under ERISA Section 3(38). This liability transfer allows you to spend less time and energy on plan investments and more time on what matters most to your business. To learn more about the different fiduciary roles under ERISA, refer to the Simplify Responsibility tab or our Need Help Navigating Investment Responsibilities? position paper.

CAPTRUST Direct Plan Sponsor Portal

When you hire CAPTRUST, you also gain access to CAPTRUST Direct, a secure plan sponsor portal that gives you real-time investment research from CAPTRUST, access to investment reviews, and alerts when new documents are posted for your plan. You can store documents—like your investment policy statement, meeting notes, employee communications, and other plan documents—to help with plan governance. The portal, which is accessible 24/7, serves as an online fiduciary process and task management tool that can record activity and streamline fiduciary tasks, giving you the ability to satisfy Department of Labor (DOL) and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) audit requests with minimal effort or advance preparation.

Understanding Fiduciary Roles

If you’re like most plan sponsors, successfully managing a retirement plan can feel like a tall order, especially when regulatory changes keep you on your toes. While fiduciary responsibilities are important, you may find yourself struggling to balance the many other competing demands of your role outside managing your retirement plan. Did you know that you can decide how much investment responsibility you want to take on yourself?
There are several definitions for types of fiduciaries under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). Understanding the different types of fiduciaries may help you determine the level of investment selection and monitoring responsibility with which you are comfortable, or whether you prefer to transfer liability to an investment manager.

Do It Yourself

  • You are the sole named investment fiduciary to the plan.
  • You select the investment menu without advice from an outside source and have full liability for investment selection. No outside party shares investment fiduciary responsibility.

Get Help

  • Under ERISA section 3(21), you are a co-fiduciary with an investment advisor.
  • You hire a registered investment advisor (RIA) to assist with plan investment decisions. The RIA may provide services ranging from investment consulting services to a more holistic engagement, including plan design consulting, vendor selection, participant communication, education, and advice. The plan sponsor is not fully relieved of fiduciary responsibility for selection and monitoring of plan investment options.

Have It Done for You

  • Under ERISA section 3(38), you select a designated investment advisor to be the investment manager.
  • You hire an RIA as an investment manager to select and monitor your plan’s investment options on an ongoing basis. This investment manager accepts discretionary authority to manage, acquire, and dispose of investment options over time. The investment manager acknowledges in writing that it is acting as a fiduciary with responsibility and accountability for the selection of the investment menu.

A 3(38) arrangement represents the highest level of investment fiduciary liability transfer possible under ERISA. ERISA views the liability for investment selection as residing with the investment manager. While this does not completely absolve the plan sponsor, liability is defined more narrowly. ERISA 405(d) provides that under a 3(38) arrangement, “the plan sponsor and/or trustees of the plan are not liable for acts or omissions of the 3(38) investment manager, and are under no obligation to invest or otherwise manage any asset of the plan which is subject to management of that investment manager.”

Click here for a white paper on navigating investment responsibilities. Or click here to listen to our Revamping Retirement podcast on the discretion decision, featuring Jenny Eller of Groom Law Group.

Direct Fiduciary® represents a “Have It Done for You” approach. By hiring CAPTRUST to act as your plan’s investment manager and holistic advisor, you’ll spend less time and energy managing your retirement plan and more time managing your business.

In 1989, the founders of CAPTRUST joined together to provide institutional and private investors an independent and objective choice for financial advice and fiduciary support.

Our firm was built on the premise that investors are best served by advisors who are motivated to focus exclusively on the best interests of their clients. This unwavering commitment to independence and transparency has enabled CAPTRUST to grow from the vision of its entrepreneurial founders to one of the largest independent advisory firms in the country.

At CAPTRUST, we believe investment advisory firms are only as strong as the people who create the advice. Moreover, as the demands of a global economy and a vastly underfunded retirement system converge on institutions, corporations, and individual investors alike, we believe advice focused solely on investment performance will fall woefully short in helping clients navigate the road ahead with confidence.

Contact Us

Have questions about moving forward? We’re more than happy to answer them. Get in touch to see how joining CAPTRUST can benefit you and your clients.

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