MacKay Shields Expands Defined Contribution Capabilities with Introduction of Two Collective Investment Trusts

MacKay Shields LLC (“MacKay”), a global, multi-product fixed income investment manager, announced that it will act as advisor to two SEI Trust Company sponsored collective investment trusts (“CITs”), implementing MacKay’s Core Plus Bond and Unconstrained Bond strategies. This launch marks MacKay’s expansion in the U.S. retirement market and delivers new investment opportunities for plan sponsors. The SEI Trust Company is a subsidiary of SEI (NASDAQ:SEIC), a leading global provider of investment operations solutions, investment processing and investment management.

“Collective investment trusts have emerged as a key vehicle for plan sponsors moving from the defined benefit to the defined contribution model,” said John Akkerman, MacKay’s Global Head of Distribution. “We at MacKay Shields are committed to meeting institutional investors’ needs as the retirement market continues to evolve, and we believe that collective investment trusts implementing our established fixed income strategies will create new opportunities for plan sponsors as they continue to adopt the defined contribution model.”

“The decoupling in the recoveries of the US and UK versus Continental Europe and Japan has presented significant opportunities in the global bond markets,” said Dan Roberts, Executive Managing Director and Head of Global Fixed Income at MacKay. “Against this backdrop, we believe that our Core Plus and Unconstrained Bond strategies are well-positioned to deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns to both retail and institutional investors.”

“We have successfully partnered with quality managers for over 25 years, and MacKay Shields is a great example of a successful global manager that understands there is no one-size-fits-all product structure for their strategies,” said John Alshefski, Senior Vice President, SEI’s Investment Manager Services division. “We are pleased to add MacKay Shields as a Collective Investment Trust manager in our world class Collective Investment Trust offering.”

The MacKay Shields Core Plus Bond CIT aims to deliver returns by opportunistically identifying investments in global developed and emerging markets as well as high yield debt securities. The MacKay Shields Unconstrained Bond CIT employs a flexible investment process that allocates investments across the global fixed income markets. MacKay Shields has been managing these strategies via ‘40 Act funds and separate accounts since 1999 (Core Plus Bond) and 2009 (Unconstrained Bond).

Dan Roberts, Head of Global Fixed Income and Chief Investment Officer leads the portfolio management team that will advise the new CITs. SEI Trust Company serves as the CITs’ trustee and investment manager. Both strategies are available to all tax-qualified retirement plans..

About MacKay Shields LLC

MacKay Shields LLC (“MacKay”) serves as the Fund’s investment sub-advisor. MacKay is a fixed-income focused investment management firm with approximately $90 billion in assets under management as of September 30, 2014. MacKay manages fixed income strategies for high-net worth individuals, institutional clients and mutual funds, including unconstrained bond, global high yield, high yield, high yield active core, municipal high yield, short duration high yield, low volatility high yield, municipal short term, core investment grade, municipal investment grade, core plus, core plus opportunities, convertibles, emerging markets credit, and bank loans. MacKay is an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of New York Life Insurance Company and a wholly-owned subsidiary of New York Life Investment Management Holdings LLC.

SEI Trust Company (the “Trustee”) serves as the Trustee of the Fund and maintains ultimate fiduciary authority over the management of, and the investments made, in the Fund. The Fund is part of a Collective Investment Trust (the “Trust”) operated by the Trustee. The Trustee is a trust company organized under the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and wholly owned subsidiary of SEI Investments Company (SEI).

The Trusts are trusts for the collective investment of assets or participating tax qualified pension and profit sharing plans and related trusts, and governmental plans as more fully described in the Declaration of Trust. As bank collective trusts, the Trusts are exempt from registration as an investment company. The Trusts are managed by SEI Trust Company, the trustee, based on the investment advice of MacKay Shields LLC, the investment adviser to the trusts.