The Principal Financial Group Continues to Build Institutional Retirement Plan Servicing Capabilities
August 2, 2006 (Des Moines, Iowa) — Building on the company's scalable expertise in providing retirement solutions for growing businesses and their employees, the Principal Financial Group®, the nation's 401(k) leader1 and total retirement solutions innovator, continues to enhance its capacity to serve the institutional retirement plan market.
The Principal® defines institutional retirement plans as those having a minimum of 1,000 employee participants with total plan assets of $50 million or more. To meet the sophisticated servicing needs of clients with $100 million or more in retirement plan assets, The Principal provides a dedicated institutional consultant relationship management team, product specialists and sales expertise specific to large plan opportunities. The Principal currently serves approximately 380 institutional clients. The company's institutional retirement plan sales alone grew 31 percent in 2005 (over the previous year).
To continue the company's momentum in serving the retirement plan needs of institutional clients, Eileen Conroy recently was named second vice president, institutional marketing director. Prior to joining The Principal, Conroy was responsible for institutional marketing sales and revenue campaigns in MetLife's group life, dental, disability and long-term care areas. Her 25 years of marketing experience also includes retail-oriented marketing roles with Kraft Foods, Colgate Palmolive Company and A.T. Cross.
"Eileen's extensive marketing background, coupled with her expertise in pioneering lead generation programs, integrating branding with direct marketing messages and launching product innovations, will enhance our ability to serve growing businesses and their employees," said Paul A. Brown, vice president, Retirement & Investor Services-Institutional Market Segment. "While she will contribute to our overall marketing efforts, Eileen's role focuses specifically on the needs of the institutional, Taft-Hartley and defined benefit markets."
Conroy said institutional clients often have multiple retirement plans in place. More than one-third of all retirement sales (in assets) at The Principal in 2005 were total retirement solutions that included two or more of the following plan types: defined benefit, defined contribution, employee stock ownership plans and nonqualified retirement solutions. In a recent independent survey of retirement plan clients of The Principal with $25 million or more in assets, The Principal received more than 60 Best in Class rankings and achieved an impressive sixth consecutive year of rising client satisfaction scores. The survey was conducted by Chatham Partners, a leading provider of market research to the financial services industry.
About The Principal Financial Group
The Principal Financial Group® (The Principal®)2 is a leader in offering businesses, individuals and institutional clients a wide range of financial products and services, including retirement and investment services, life and health insurance and banking through its diverse family of financial services companies and national network of financial professionals. A member of the Fortune 500, the Principal Financial Group has $206 billion in assets under management3 and serves some 16.3 million customers worldwide from offices in Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America and the United States. Principal Financial Group, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol PFG. For more information, visit www.principal.com.
1) The May 2005 "Bundled 401(k) Buyer's Guide" published by Treasury & Risk Management lists The Principal as the 401(k) leader based on the total number of plans administered.
2) "The Principal Financial Group" and "The Principal" are registered service marks of Principal Financial Services, Inc., a member of the Principal Financial Group.
3) As of June 30, 2006.
