Questions and Answers Fund Accounting and Support Services RFP Date Question OPERS Response 4/11 Page 13 of the RFP requests flexibility to provide minimum services with or without custody of the assets. Please elaborate as this will have a direct impact on any fee proposal. 4/11 Do you anticipate contracting services for both the DB and DC plans? 4/11 Does this RFP include custody of the DB assets listed on pages 4-8 of the RFP or is it limited to the DC assets identified on page 12? 4/11 Please provide additional details about your use and inputs for the Eagle Investment System. Do you run Eagle in-house? What do you rely upon it for? Since OPERS does not have statutory authority to designate its custodial bank, it cannot guarantee that the Vendor will have custody of the assets. OPERS assets are currently held with JPMorgan through October 1, 2016 at which point the State Treasurer s office will have the responsibility of designating a custodial bank for the next period. Therefore, the Vendor must be able to provide OPERS with a price that does not include having custody of the assets. OPERS will expect the services to include fund accounting and supporting services for both the DB and DC plans. Custody of the DB and DC assets is not part of this RFP. Fund accounting and supporting services for both the DB and DC plans is part of this RFP. OPERS currently runs Eagle in-house and relies on the system for validation of the fund accounting and supporting services provided by our current Provider.
4/11 Are you looking to have both the DB & DC daily valued and audited? 4/11 Please provide a list of assets by account including the security identifier. 4/11 Please provide transaction counts of the following: *Purchases/Sales- Domestic and foreign (for non-us please provide activity by country) *Paydowns *Derivatives- Purchases/Sales/Complex/OTC *Incoming and outgoing wire transfers The DB plan is daily valued and monthly audited. The DC plan is daily valued and daily audited. We have provided sufficient detail in the RFP for the Vendor to provide a response. Purchases/sales for the domestic and foreign (for non-u.s. please provide activity by country) as follows: Country Buy Sell Trade Count AE 12 AM 1 AN 39 AR 88 AT 401 AU 4100 AZ 20 BB 3 BE 589 BH 6 BM 1341 BO 15
BR 2329 BS 5 BY 7 BZ 2 CA 5406 CH 2012 CI 3 CL 100 CN 712 CO 228 CR 18 CW 9 CY 21 CZ 38 DE 2733 DK 663 DO 38 EC 6 EG 94 ES 891
EU 8 FI 596 FR 2129 GA 3 GB 8613 GE 16 GG 71 GH 39 GI 11 GR 1139 GT 21 HK 4599 HN 12 HR 70 HU 193 ID 1274 IE 975 IL 795 IM 2 IN 2273
IQ 7 IT 1427 JE 136 JO 23 JP 14472 KE 4 KR 2877 KY 585 KZ 29 LK 17 LR 43 LT 16 LU 616 LV 5 MA 11 MH 105 MN 21 MU 14 MX 1287 MY 1210
NA 3 NG 138 NL 1656 NO 818 NZ 272 PA 164 PE 179 PH 447 PL 415 PR 49 PT 195 PY 14 QA 28 RO 64 RS 10 RU 367 RW 6 SC 1 SE 1547 SG 1865
SI 30 SK 8 SN 5 SN 61 SV 24 TH 1131 TR 1113 TT 6 TW 2390 TZ 5 UA 47 UG 2 US 96179 UY 49 VE 324 VG 115 VN 2 ZA 1444 ZM 6
Derivatives - Futures OPERS is active in 13 accounts. OPERS trades daily with daily wires. Swaps OPERS currently has eight swaps in three accounts. There are monthly resets with daily collateral margining. 4/11 Can you please elaborate on what is meant regarding services for assets not under custody? Is this specifically regarding mutual/collective funds where the fund assets are held elsewhere? Or are you asking that the candidate be able to provide services based upon shadow reporting of assets held elsewhere? 4/11 One of the services required is listed as (u)nitization of DB portfolio managers as an investment option for the DC plan. As we reviewed the current structure, it was not apparent that this was currently occurring. Can you confirm whether or not such a structure is currently in place? 4/11 The RFP describes the target date funds as Option 2- Target Date Funds- in addition to Option 1- Core Investment Options, a series of 6 blended funds ranging from conservative to Forwards OPERS is active in ten funds. On a total level, there are less than five trades per in all funds. Assets that are not under custody will either be depository-ineligible assets that are not custodied by the Vendor/custodial bank and for which only shadow reporting is performed (i.e., derivatives, private equity, etc.). Unitization of DB portfolio managers is not currently in place. The OPERS DC plan has used DB unitized managers in the past and may again in the future. There are 10 Target date funds which invest in seven funds according the allocation table. Four of the seven funds are the same funds available in Option 1.
aggressive, based on retirement age, currently invest in the tier 1 Core Investment Options according to the following target allocations. The tier 1 cores are described as a total of six investment options are available to participants as of the effective date of the defined contribution plans. However, the allocation table shows 10 target date funds and allocations to 7 different component parts. While none of the 10 individually hold all 7 components, all 7 components do have an allocation within at least 1 fund. Can you clarify the structures? 4/11 Page 13 of the RFP requests flexibility to provide minimum services with or without custody of the assets. Please elaborate as this will have a direct impact on any fee proposal. 4/11 Do you anticipate contracting services for both the DB and DC plans? The Stock Index and Stable Value funds are not part of Option 2. Since OPERS does not have statutory authority to designate its custodial bank, it cannot guarantee that the Vendor will have custody of the assets. OPERS assets are currently held with JPMorgan through October 1, 2016 at which point the State Treasurer s office will have the responsibility of designating a custodial bank for the next period. Therefore, the Vendor must be able to provide OPERS with a price that does not include having custody of the assets. OPERS will expect the services to include fund accounting and supporting services for both the DB and DC plans. 4/15 The fund count refers to DB and HC Plans combined. Can we please confirm the structure for performance? e.g (Would you prefer each OPERS requires that the following performance be provided: plan performance, composite performance,
plan reported separately or with their own set of managers and composites? Please elaborate on the accounting services you require relative to derivatives monitoring, risk control and compliance. 4/15 Do you require Trade Cost Analysis Services as part of the service scope? 4/15 Is OPERS interested in monthly buy hold attribution analysis done on the commingled funds of the DB and HC Plans (leveraging our commingled look through capabilities) or are you mainly looking for exposure information when referring to commingled fund analysis? 4/15 Would OPERS require any sub asset class composites in addition of the listed DB and HC plans asset class composites highlighted in the manager s list? If so how many? 4/15 Please confirm whether OPERS would like any custom blended benchmarks (in addition to the target date funds benchmarks and the policy benchmarks) and how many? 4/15 Please confirm whether OPERS can provide a list of benchmarks required for the DB and HC Plans managers 4/15 In question 11- What benchmarks and universes are available? Are they available online? Are they available daily? How far back do you carry manager performance, DB total Plan Attribution and HC Total Plan Attribution. Services related to derivatives monitoring, risk control and compliance are not part of the scope of this RFP. No trade cost analysis services is not part of the service scope. Yes, we need attributions at the total plan level, both DB and HC for one month and for year to date. Yes, in addition to the listed DB and HC plans asset class composites, we require incentive compensation composites. Currently, there are 15+ composites, which is subject to change. Yes, OPERS does use custom blended benchmarks. Yes, please see the attached list of benchmarks. We need benchmark and OPERS historical returns from inception.
historical returns? Is the last question about benchmark historical returns, OPERS historical returns or both? 4/15 When does OPERS anticipate a conversion date? The anticipated conversion date is August 1, 2014.