Van Kampen Asset Management and Legg Mason are both seeking to launch target-date series funds. The Wall Street Journal reported the plans in an article noting the popularity of the funds in retirement plans in wake of the Pension Protection Act and the DoL's creation of qualified default investment accounts.

The paper also highlighted Allstate's launch of its sub-advised ClearTarget Retirement Fund series in April and Old Mutual Capital's launch launch of the Ibbotson-advised Target Date Plus Portfolios in March.

Michael Doshier, vice president of marketing in Fidelity Investments' retirement-services division tells the paper that demand for the target-date funds has "just exploded."

Through April, target-date funds held $196.8 billion in assets, according to data from Financial Research Corp. That is up from $182.6 billion at the start of the year.

Meanwhile, target-risk funds held $215.5 billion in assets at the end of April, according to FRC. Target-risk funds have a longer history than target-date funds. 

Edited by: Sean Hanna, Editor in Chief


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