Lord Abbett offers discounts on new IRAs

Lord Abbett & Co. is offering discounts to clients who open an individual retirement account by April 15. The mutual fund company announced it will waive its $10 annual custodial fee for such accounts, and will pay FedEx shipping charges for financial advisers who open IRA accounts before the April deadline. “We realize that the IRA is a very important part of the adviser’s business and probably more so with the baby boomers retiring,” said Mike Weldon, partner and director of marketing, in an interview. Given last year’s market downturn, Lord Abbett sees this as a way of getting a positive message around saving for retirement, Mr. Weldon said. The firm also is making its senior retirement experts available to advisers. For example, usually Jim Farley, director of the Lord Abbett Retirement Research Center, is only available to advisers through presentations, but now he will be free for one-on-one discussions. Lord Abbett hopes that the promotion can ease the way for advisers to talk about the opportunity for high-net-worth clients to convert their IRAs to a Roth IRA, Mr. Weldon said. Until this year, individuals whose modified adjusted gross income exceeded $100,000 were barred from doing a Roth conversion, but starting this month they can.