OpenArc Corporate Advisory broadens fiduciary reach into workplace benefits search

OpenArc, the Dynasty-backed practce that made headlines and history last year as the largest-ever wirehouse team to become an independent RIA, is widening the scope of its institutional consulting business, adding independent provider search services for retirement plans, equity compensation, deferred compensation and health savings accounts.

The move announced Tuesday extends a fiduciary practice that already advises corporate plan sponsors on investment oversight, giving those employers a single independent partner to evaluate and select providers across their benefits programs.

OpenArc said it will run independent requests for information and requests for proposals covering both integrated benefits packages and standalone plan searches. As a registered investment advisor acting as either a 3(38) investment manager or a 3(21) fiduciary, it touted the experience it has built around ongoing governance support for plan sponsors through its institutional practice. Layering search consulting on top of that oversight role would let the firm stay involved across the entire arc of a benefits program, from initial evaluation through provider selection and continued monitoring.

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Chad Pigg Fife, principal partner for institutional consulting and corporate business development at OpenArc, said sponsors are under growing pressure to assess providers spanning everything from 401(k) plans to nonqualified deferred compensation and equity compensation, as well as health savings accounts.

"OpenArc [helps] organizations navigate provider complexity, make informed decisions, and fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities," Fife said, highlighting OpenArc's role as the "independent fiduciary partner in the room."

OpenArc has positioned its independence as a selling point in a market it says is consolidating around a handful of large, integrated recordkeepers and administrators. The firm does not manage investment products, administer plans or accept revenue-sharing payments from providers, an arrangement it argues keeps its recommendations tied to the interests of plan sponsors and participants rather than provider economics.

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OpenArc's client base spans mid-market, large-market and mega-market organizations, and its institutional team includes Certified Equity Professionals with backgrounds in designing and governing equity compensation plans.

In June, the firm leaned further into its retirement planning expertise with the addition of Kevin Crain, a former head of retirement research at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, as a strategic consultant. Crain, who also serves as executive director of the Institutional Retirement Income Council, is expected to focus on research examining the convergence of corporate benefits, personal wealth and family financial well-being.

Jeff Crowell, OpenArc's managing partner of corporate strategy, said the firm's thesis is that benefits and wealth intersect in employees' financial lives even when corporate systems treat them separately.

"The intersection of benefits and wealth is where employees actually live, and it has long been underserved," Crowell said in a June statement. "Employees do not think in silos, and their financial lives do not operate that way either."