MINNEAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

DCAdvisors, a retirement plan, investment strategy and plan governance consulting firm announced that industry veteran John Rowe has joined their client consulting group as well as the firms leadership team.

Mr. Rowe has served in a variety of market-facing roles throughout his distinguished 30-year career. His professional experience includes senior leadership roles in business development, client management and product development while working at American Express (now Ameriprise), Merrill Lynch, Genworth and MetLife. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and is a recognized expert in the use of lifetime income solutions within target risk and target date investment strategies.

DCAdvisors Managing Director Dan Esch stated, More than ever, corporate executives and retirement plan committees need objective guidance regarding their fiduciary responsibilities. Johns experience with institutional investments and his industry knowledge will be immensely valuable to our clients as we advise retirement plan sponsors on the new 408(b)(2) and 404(a)(5) fee transparency requirements, design appropriate risk mitigation strategies, and deliver enhanced service provider and investment menu benchmarking services.

Mr. Rowe served as a trustee for the Minnesota Zoo Foundation from 2003 to 2007 and as Board Chair from 2007 to 2009. Additionally, he served in a leadership capacity during the 2002 and 2009 PGA Championships held at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, MN and plans to serve in a similar capacity at the Ryder Cup Matches scheduled in 2016.

Mr. Rowe is a native of Kokomo, IN. He received a degree as Bachelor of Science (Finance and Economics) from Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana in 1982. He and his wife Julie have lived in the Twin Cities since 1990 and have two grown children.

About DCAdvisors: DCAdvisors helps companies meet their retirement plan fiduciary responsibilities by providing plan design expertise, unbiased investment recommendations and comprehensive plan governance services to mid and large retirement plan sponsors across the U.S. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the firm prides itself on its independence and its reputation for passion, commitment and integrity.

DCAdvisors is a registered investment advisor, founded in 1994.

To find out more, please visit http://www.DCAdvisors.com

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Industry Veteran John Rowe Joins Retirement Plan, Governance and Investment Consulting Firm

RBC CANADIAN CONSUMER OUTLOOK - Percentage of share of responsibility for ensuring a financially secure retirement

Alberta residents acknowledge that their investment knowledge is limited

TORONTO , May 9, 2012 /CNW/ - Albertans on average say they are responsible for most (62 per cent) of their financial security in retirement - three percentage points higher than the national average, according to the latest RBC Canadian Consumer Outlook (RBC CCO).

Thirty-seven per cent of Albertans are confident they will have enough money to have a secure retirement. On the flip side, 35 per cent are concerned about securing their financial future and nearly one-third (29 per cent) say they will have to return to work or continue working after 65 to maintain a steady income stream.

"We're here to provide Canadians with the information and advice they need to make informed decisions about their financial future," said Michael Wood , regional vice-president, RBC. "Thinking about retirement from an early age and putting a plan in place builds a strong foundation for financial security whether they're saving $50 or $500 a month."

However, when it comes to understanding the array of investment options, two-thirds (62 per cent) of Albertans say that they don't know enough about how all retirement savings options work and 44 per cent say they don't have the time to learn and understand their retirement savings options.

Other highlights from the survey found:

The RBC CCO is Canada's most comprehensive consumer assessment of the economy, personal financial situation and economic and purchasing expectations.

About RBC's savings and other financial advice and interactive tools Canadians can freely access savings advice and resources at rbc.com/savingsspot. In addition, all personal RBC online banking clients can use myFinanceTracker, a no-cost interactive financial management tool, to create a budget and track their spending habits. Whether Canadians want to get more from their day to day banking, protect what's important, save and invest, borrow with confidence or take care of their businesses, the RBC Advice Centre can help answer their questions. Interactive tools and calculators provide customized information covering many facets of personal finance. In addition, online advice videos are updated regularly to reflect current trends and to answer the questions that are top of mind with Canadians. With the guidance of RBC advisors who are available to chat live, Canadians have access to free, no-obligation professional advice about RBC products and services and personalized one-on-one service at rbcadvicecentre.com.

About the RBC Canadian Consumer Outlook The survey is conducted online via Ipsos Reid's national I-Say Consumer Panel to 3,398 Canadians (489 British Columbia, 481 Alberta, 539 Saskatchewan/Manitoba, 778 Ontario, 525 Quebec , 586 Atlantic Canada ). Weightingwas thenemployed to balance demographics and ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. Data collection was April 2 to 9, 2012. A survey with an unweighted probability sample of this size and a 100 per cent response rate would have an estimated margin of error of 1.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, of what the results would have been had the entire population of adults in Canada been polled. The margin of error will be larger within regions and for other sub-groupings of the survey population.

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Albertans taking retirement matters into their own hands: RBC

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) Retirement health-care costs are enough to cause a severe anxiety attack. Even with Medicare benefits, a 65-year-old couple retiring in 2012 will spend at least $240,000 in retirement, according to the latest estimate from Fidelity Investments.

That doesnt include long-term-care costs, over-the-counter medications and most dental costs.

Plus, that $240,000 estimate is based on average life expectancy for a 65-year-oldthe husband living until age 82 and the wife until 85but average means half of people live longer than that.

In other words, that 65-year-old couple may well need much more than $240,000.

No wonder almost half of wealthy Americans close to retirement said they are extremely worried about the effect health-care costs will have on their plans, according to a recent survey, by Harris Interactive for Nationwide Financial, of people with more than $250,000 in household assets.

When youre young, you cant envision what its actually going to cost you, said Henry Hebeler, a former Boeing executive who created AnalyzeNow.com, a retirement-planning website.

As you get older, thats when you start having the medical bills, said the 78-year-old Hebeler. I missed one day of work for sickness in 33 years at Boeing. And then I retired, he said.

Despite being relatively healthyhe and his wife still ski, for instancehes been in the hospital a number of times since retiring, he said, including for knee surgery. He details some of his experiences on his website.

Get your budget straight

If youre still in the retirement-planning stage, you might be envisioning lower living costsno more commuting, buying business attire, setting aside huge sums for retirement.

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Your retirement health-care tab will run $240,000

Published: 10:47AM Monday May 07, 2012 Source: BusinessDesk

Source: Metlifecare

Metlifecare, which raised $45.5 million of new capital last year, has agreed to buy rivals Vision Senior Living (VSL) and Private Life Care Holdings (PLC) in a deal worth some $216 million in stock and cash.

The retirement village operator will buy VSL's five existing villages for $83 million in Metlifecare shares, and PLC's three villages for $123 million for scrip, the company said in a statement.

VSL's shareholders will also buy 4.2 million further shares for some $10 million in cash to pay down the retirement village operator's debt.

"The merger will strengthen Metlifecare's presence in the key Auckland retirement village market and ensure that the company continues to compete strongly in the New Zealand retirement village sector," managing director Alan Edwards said.

"The merger will be immediately cash flow accretive and will provide an enhanced platform for Metlifecare to drive growth and shareholder value."

In February, Metlifecare reported a 38% slump in first-half underlying profit as it had to pay rising insurance costs and had to contend with smaller operating revenue after selling its Merivale Village last year.

The merger will boost Metlifecare's portfolio to 24 villages, three of which are in development.

The number of units will increase to 3,902 from 2,460, while brownfield and greenfield capacity climbs to 1,011 units from 380 units.

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Retirement village owner buys two rivals

Dear Liz: After working all out for 28 years in a small business, I have put away $2.6 million in stocks, bonds and some cash. (I am a reasonably smart investor.) I'm 58 and want to be done at 60. I'm not tired of my business, just tired of working. How much do you think I could draw out and not get myself into trouble? I'm in great health, so I could last 30 more years. Our house is paid off, and my wife gets about $40,000 a year from a nice pension. Any ideas?

Answer: Financial planners typically recommend an initial withdrawal rate of 3% to 4% of your portfolio. With $2.6 million, your first year's withdrawal would be $78,000 to $104,000. The idea is that you could adjust the withdrawal upward by the inflation rate each year and still be reasonably confident you won't run out of money after 30 years.

Some studies indicate you can start with a higher withdrawal rate, as long as you're willing to cut back in bad markets.

There is still some risk of going broke, though, even with a 3% withdrawal rate. Particularly poor stock market returns at the beginning of your retirement, for example, could increase the chances your nest egg will give out before you do.

This is an issue you really should discuss with a fee-only financial planner who can review your investments and your spending to make personalized recommendations. (You can get referrals from the National Assn. of Personal Financial Advisors or the Garrett Planning Network.) If you've chosen especially risky stocks or have too much of your portfolio in bonds, for example, your retirement plan could fail even if you choose a conservative initial withdrawal rate.

You'll also want to talk about how you're going to get health insurance, and how much it's likely to cost. If you've been arranging coverage through your business, you might face some sticker shock when you have to buy a policy on your own. But it's essential to have this coverage, since you won't qualify for Medicare until you're 65.

If you're not tired of your business, you might consider phasing in retirement, if that's possible in your situation. That would mean starting to take some long breaks to travel or pursue the interests you plan to indulge in retirement. Delaying retirement even a few years can dramatically increase the chances your nest egg will last.

Shielding elderly parent from larceny

Dear Liz: I liked your answer to the elderly couple who were being badgered for money by their daughter and her husband. I agree that involving the other daughter can help.

I managed to combat the tendency of family and caregivers to pester my 90-something mom for money by convincing her to give me electronic access to her bank accounts. We did this so that I could pay her bills if she got sick unexpectedly. The other benefit is that I see the small larcenies as they begin to happen. Then I can quickly step in and stop them before they escalate. It is a lot easier having a conversation with someone who has sleazed $100 from her than to deal with the $5,000 theft that motivated me to set this in motion.

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Deciding how quickly to draw down retirement funds

ANN ARBOR (WWJ) - New researchby the University of Michigan shows that 40 percent of older Americans postponed retirement in the wake of the Great Recession.

The research is the first to link actual data on household wealth just before and after the downturn to the retirement plans of a nationally representative sample of Americans age 50 and older.

Brooke HelppieMcFall, an economist at the U-M Institute for Social Research, said the typical household lost aboutfive percent of its total wealth between the summers of 2008 and 2009. She said the average personwould need to work between 3.7 and 5 years longer than they planned in order to make up the money they lost.

But people do not intend to work long enough to make up everything they lost.

In considering when to retire, people make trade-offs between their desire for more leisure and for more time to spend with friends and family, and their desire to be financially secure in retirement, McFall said in a statement.

So the typical person we surveyed who planned to work longer because of the recession only planned to work about 1.6 years longer than they had originally planned. That isnt long enough to make up what they lost, but theyre trading off time for money.

In general, research shows that people who decided to postpone retirement also expected to leave less for their heirs.

With funding from the National Institute on Aging, McFall conducted the analysis using longitudinal data from 900 participants in two ISR studies: the Health and Retirement Study and the Cognitive Economics Study.

She found that people who were pessimists about whether the stock market was going to rebound in the next year, and people who were within two years of their initial retirement age, were the most likely to say they planned to work longer.She also found that the greater the loss, the more likely people were to delay their retirement. Still, she saidvery few people decided that they would work long enough to recoup their entire economic loss.

In the analysis, McFall took into account financial wealth, including stock market, cash and retirement accounts, and net equity in housing wealth, as well as the likely value of future earnings, based on the income and the unemployment rate in the counties where participants lived.

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Retirement Plans After The Great Recession

And if you need to save for your childrens college as well as your own retirement, youve got a daunting challenge on your hands.

The cost of a college education continues to rise faster than inflation, at roughly 5 percent per year. The average sticker-price for four years at a private college is now more than $150,000 including $38,589 for the 2011-12 school year. Even going to your states university runs close to half that total at an average $17,131 a year, according to the College Board.

Retirement is far more expensive than that.

How do you balance those important objectives? Here are five considerations to keep top-of-mind as you juggle both:

1. PUT RETIREMENT FIRST.

Student loan debt has risen above $1 trillion and the average students debt at graduation now exceeds $25,000, according to the Project on Student Debt. Hoping to keep their own kids from being overly burdened, parents often unwisely sink thousands of dollars into their childrens education that otherwise would have gone toward their own retirement.

The latest evidence of this largesse came in recent survey results by Ameriprise Financial that showed that only 24 percent of baby boomers were putting away money for their future, down from 44 percent at the end of 2007. Yet the level of support they were providing their children and other family members had not changed.

Paying for college has to take a back seat to retirement, says Kalman Chany, a New York financial aid consultant and author of Paying for College Without Going Broke.

The real dilemma is whether youll have enough money left for retirement after repaying your debt, Chany says.

Dont give in to the temptation to pitch in heavily for college without making sure your retirement savings are on track. You may well leave yourself short in the future, especially with retirements now often spanning three decades.

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5 ways to balance retirement and college savings

LONDON A new survey by Prudential says people in the UK who want to retire this year are looking forward to traveling the world (36 percent) or enjoying themselves (43 percent). Only 5 percent plan to spend anything on charity.

But the top priority seems to be a prerequisite for their dreams: "Prudential has revealed the results of new research which shows the top priority for people intending to retire this year is saving money to ensure they have enough to live on in retirement. Nearly 6 out of 10 people (57 percent) said saving will be a top priority," the press release said.

"Today's retirees are likely to spend longer in retirement than previous generations," Vince Smith-Hughes, retirement income expert at Prudential, said in the survey press release, "so it is encouraging to see that they understand the importance of saving money to ensure they can live comfortably. Saving shouldn't be regarded as something that suddenly stops once you retire, and the current generation of retirees seems to be more aware of this than ever before."

But for many in the U.S., retirement may just be a pipe dream.

CNN Money featured an article titled "Delaying retirement: 80 is the new 65." About a quarter of middle-class Americans have so little savings that they are planning to delay their retirement until they are at least 80 years old.

Eighty years old is two years longer than average life expectancy meaning that many people are working to save enough money to die some day.

"It sounds depressing, but for many it's a necessity," the CNN article said. "On average, Americans have only saved a mere 7 percent of the retirement nest egg they were hoping to build, according to Wells Fargo's latest retirement survey that polled 1,500 middle-class Americans."

People had a median savings of about $25,000. Their median goal was $350,000.

Clive Crook, a Bloomberg View columnist, said Americans' problem is not Social Security solvency, but that it won't be enough to retire on. "When they retire, many baby boomers will see a far bigger drop in their standard of living than they had expected," he said. "Many will have to work longer, whether they want to or not."

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Retirement savings: Too little too late?

Many self-employed workers focus on retirement savings strategies that will give them an immediate tax advantage, but they may overlook opportunities to maximize investment returns over time.

Peter Dazeley | Getty Images

Strategy #1: Set Up a Solo 401(k) Plan

If you own your own business or are self-employed, one strategy that can make the most of your long-term savings this tax year and beyond it to set up a Solo 401(k).

Under new Solo 401(k) rules for 2012, you can contribute up to $50,000 this year or $55,500 if you're 50 or older. A couple working in a business together could put in up to $100,000 for retirement (up to $111,000 if both are over 50)!

Part of that savings is a salary deferraljust like a regular or Roth 401(k)with a maximum contribution of up to $17,000. The other portion comes from profit-sharing, allowing you to add up to 25 percent more to your nest egg, up to $50,000 (or, if you're 50 or older, $55,500). That second part cannot be made as a Roth 401(k).

But Susan John, chair of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors, suggests if you can set up a Roth 401(k) for the salary deferral portion, definitely take advantage of it.

"It's an opportunity to build a stream of tax-free income for the future that will never, ever be taxable. Even though you don't get the deduction right now, it's probably the most important contribution that a person can make," John advises.

Strategy #2: Open a Health Savings Account

Opt for a high deductible health plan and open a Health Savings Account or HSA. The money you put in a HSA is tax-deductible and the money can be taken out of the account tax-free for qualified medical, dental and vision expenses. Any money you don't use can be invested and gains are tax-deferred.

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Three Retirement Strategies for Self-Employed Workers

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/wqfh23/cerulli_edge_ret) has announced the addition of the "Cerulli Edge - Retirement Edition Topic: Qualified Default Investment Alternatives (1Q 2012)" report to their offering.

The Cerulli Edge-Retirement Edition covers key trends impacting the U.S. retirement marketplace (public and private defined contribution and defined benefit, IRA, rollover, and non-qualified plans). It addresses topics critical to firms competing for retirement dollars including: asset managers, distributors, plan providers, and third-party vendors. Future themes will range from retirement income to pension asset management and investment vehicles. Content includes both qualitative insight and proprietary data garnered from a quarterly survey of firms across the industry. This publication delivers the most timely retirement-related research and industry trends.

In this issue the report provides insights into the future of QDIA solutions for both accumulator and retirement-income-oriented investors.

The report also contains proprietary data on defined benefit (DB), defined contribution (DC), annuities and insurance, retirement income, and individual retirement account (IRA) markets.

Key Topics Covered:

Qualified Default Investment Alternatives: Future Files

A brief history of the future of QDIA

- Percent of Plans with Autoenrollment and QDIA Selections for Autodeferrals by Segment, 2010

- 401(k) Participants by Type, 2010-2016E (millions)

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Research and Markets: Cerulli Edge - Retirement Edition Topic: Qualified Default Investment Alternatives (1Q 2012)