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Life Health > Annuities > Variable Annuities

Venerable Picks Russell, Franklin Templeton as Annuity Fund Managers

By Allison Bell

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A company that provides a home for life insurers’ unwanted variable annuities has picked Russell Investments and Franklin Templeton to help it run the investment funds inside the contracts.

Venerable Holdings announced that Russell will be the sub-advisor for six of the funds in the new Venerable Variable Insurance Trust business, and Franklin Templeton will be the sub-advisor for three funds.

Tim Brown, president of Venerable Advisers, Venerable’s new RIA unit, said Venerable likes Franklin Templeton’s investment management expertise and Russell’s funds.

“It was important to select partners with the right capabilities and expertise,” Brown said.

What it means: Venerable’s RIA could eventually manage a substantial amount of variable annuity assets for clients with old annuities.

Venerable has assumed responsibility for tens of billions of dollars of annuities from issuers like Voya, Equitable and John Hancock. The latest financial statement for the firm’s Venerable Insurance and Annuity Co. subsidiary shows that the company ended the second quarter with about $19 billion in assets in separate accounts and related types of accounts.

The players: Venerable is a West Chester, Pennsylvania-based company that was started in 2018 by a group of companies that included Apollo Global Management, Athene and Reverence Capital Partners.

Venerable Insurance and Annuity Co. administers about 200,000 in-force annuity contracts.

Franklin Templeton is a San Mateo, California-based money manager with $1.4 trillion in AUM.

Russell is a Seattle-based money manager with $292 billion in assets under management. Reverence acquired a large stake in Russell in 2016.

The filings: A preliminary prospectus shows that Venerable is starting the Venerable High Yield Fund, the Venerable Large Cap Index Fund, the Venerable Moderate Allocation Fund, the Venerable Strategic Bond Fund, the Venerable U.S. Large Cap Core Equity Fund and the Venerable U.S. Large Cap Strategic Equity Fund.

Franklin Templeton will be a sub-advisor to the strategic bond and large-cap strategic equity funds.

Russell will be a sub-advisor for the large-cap index, moderate allocation, strategic bond, U.S. large-cap core equity and U.S. large-cap strategic equity funds.

Both firms will be sub-advisors for the high-yield fund.

Tim Brown. Credit: Venerable

Allison Bell

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