A few days back, I wrote an article about how plan sponsors can prepare for the new 408(b)(2) fee disclosure regulations. A representative from a third party administrator (TPA) said that they enjoyed my article, except my snarky comments about revenue sharing kind of ruined it.<\/p>\n
I guess my comments regarding revenue sharing were a bit sarcastic, but I thought accurate. While revenue sharing payments from mutual funds to TPA to help defray the costs of administration of a plan sponsor\u2019s plan is legal, it remind me of a kickback because only some mutual fund companies pay for it and only some of their mutual funds pay it (also it may depend on the mutual platform that the plan uses as well as its size). I guess the term kickback has a negative connotation to it, but isn\u2019t that what revenue sharing is. The mutual fund paying the sub t\/a or 12b1 fee is telling the plan sponsor or financial advisor or TPA (or all three) that if you use my fund, it will help lower the cost of administration. Again, totally legal in the 401(k) industry, it would certainly be illegal in other industries. Ask the disc jockeys who got implicated in the payola scandals of the 1950\u2019s (yes, Dick Clark is still alive) whether what they did was illegal.<\/p>\n
Again, I have no problems with revenue sharing if it\u2019s fully disclosed. My problem is that there is a silly notion that revenue sharing is some sort of free money that mutual fund companies distribute that helps lower a 401(k) plan\u2019s plan expenses. The revenue sharing is not free money because plan sponsors are already paying that money through a mutual fund\u2019s expense ratio.\u00a0 Low expense ratios such as index mutual funds or exchange traded funds can\u2019t afford to pay revenue sharing when the revenue sharing payment is almost as much if not more than their expense ratio. It should be noted that when it comes to fee disclosure regulations, the expense ratio of mutual funds does not have to be disclosed (since they should already be by looking at a prospectus). Since plan sponsors and their advisors never take that cost into mind when discussing plan expenses, they then develop this crazy notion that revenue sharing is some sort of \u201cfree\u201d money. It isn\u2019t. I contend that plans that use revenue sharing are not cheaper when it comes to plans that don\u2019t. I don\u2019t have any empirical proof, but it\u2019s just a hunch.<\/p>\n
One theory that many people have in the industry is that fee disclosure will put pressure on 401(k) fees and plan expenses, so many mutual fund companies will be forced to slash the revenue sharing they distribute to lower their fund expenses, which may have the negative outcome of less 401(k) money into these funds. We shall see.<\/p>\n
Again, I have nothing wrong with the use of revenue sharing as a legal method for plan expenses, but let\u2019s call a spade a spade. Let us not pretend that revenue sharing doesn\u2019t cost the plan sponsors any money.<\/p>\n
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