Allianz aims to boost retirement adviser biz with Dial hire

Allianz Global Investors Distributors LLC hopes to attract more retirement plan adviser business now that J.P. Morgan Asset Management veteran Glenn Dial has joined.
“Working with advisers is at the core of what AGI U.S. has been doing,” Brian Gaffney, chief executive of Allianz Global Investors Distributors, said this morning. “Glenn has operated in the same space but focused on advisers who built their practices on defined contribution. He’s going to leverage a lot of relationships.”
Mr. Dial will be the head of retirement product business development at Allianz Global Investors Distributors, a new post at the firm. He joins from J.P. Morgan Asset Management, where he was a vice president and national sales manager of the defined-contribution-investment-only business. Mr. Dial had created the firm’s Target Date Compass strategy, a program that helps advisers and plan sponsors assess and select the best funds for a plan based on its objectives, risk tolerance and participant demographics.
The new addition also raises Allianz Global Investors’ profile in the retirement industry. Currently, the firm is closing in on the three-year mark for the performance of its target date funds. It also recently launched its Center for Behavioral Finance, which is headed by professor Shlomo Bernartzi, chief behavioral economist there and co-chairman of the behavioral-decision-making group at the UCLA Anderson School of Management.
Mr. Gaffney hopes to use the center’s findings, along with Mr. Dial’s experience, to help develop new tools and products for the firm’s plan clients.
“Glenn did a great job with non-proprietary target date funds at J.P. Morgan, and that’s complementary to what we’re doing,” Mr. Gaffney said. “Including him puts us in a position to be leaders in thinking better regarding plans and offering solutions.”