Jackson temporarily shuts off access to Stattman fund in VAs

Jackson National Life Insurance Co. has temporarily closed off access to the JNL/BlackRock Global Allocation fund option in the carrier's variable annuities. The announcement, which was made to advisers on Feb. 22, comes less than five months after the insurer added a $600 million clone of the fund — one of the most popular mutual fund picks of financial advisers — to its lineup. The master BlackRock Global Allocation fund, which has roughly $51 billion in total assets, is managed by Dennis Stattman. Jackson also submitted a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission on Feb. 22 detailing the closure. The fund, officially referred to as the BlackRock Series Fund Inc., won't accept any additional allocations or transfers, including any automatic transfers related to re-balancing or dollar cost averaging. Advisers have until April 22 to select a replacement if they have any automatic transfers scheduled to go into the fund, according to the filing. Advisers can also move money out, but won't be able to return until the fund has reopened, according to the SEC filing. Pending contracts with money allocated to the JNL/BlackRock Global Allocation fund will instead be allocated into the JNL/Select Money Market fund. For now, access to the JNL/BlackRock Global Allocation fund is being closed because additional shares in its master fund, the BlackRock Global Allocation fund, are unavailable, according to the filing with the SEC. The closing is temporary, according to the filing, and affects the Perspective II, Perspective L Series, Perspective Advisors II, Retirement Latitudes and Perspective Rewards annuity contracts. Jackson's spokesman Andrew Silver was unavailable to provide further information.