Skip to navigationSkip to main contentSkip to right columnADVERTISEMENTJeffrey H. SnyderMon, June 29, 2026 at 4:30 PM GMT+2 17 min readFrancis LLC's Edward McIlveen, CFA unpacks what today's conversations look like between consultants and plan sponsors, including where the biggest interest tends to come from (with target-date portfolios leading the way). We also break down what makes CIT due diligence different, what paperwork and agreement reviews are typically required, and the key underwriting questions that must be answered to satisfy the ERISA duty of prudence.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement networkEd, it's always great to see you. Thanks for joining us again this morning.Edward McIlveen, CFA, Francis LLCThank you.Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement networkWell, I don't know if, you know, I read a lot of the trade publications. I see a lot on social media. There's a lot, a big, I would say a hard press for collective investment trusts.I don't know if you see that as well. But I want to start off by asking, are you seeing clients, meaning plan sponsors, take a greater interest in these types of investment vehicles?Edward McIlveen, CFA, Francis LLCFor sure. There's a lot of ways that these kinds of investment vehicles can help streamline certain things when it comes to just thinking about expenses. What it does do, though, is a plan sponsor provides a reduction in expenses, but you also have to fight for some transparency.And so what we find is that as we bring these kinds of opportunities and these kinds of vehicles to plan sponsors, that we always say, you have to just consider that there's a little bit more homework here that needs to be done. And the homework is usually just making sure that you've got a lot of things lined up the same way you would expect for any other kind of investment strategy. And once we kind of level set that, then plan sponsors are like, all right, what do we need to do from here on out?Jeffrey Snyder, Broadcast Retirement networkI like that you gave the plan sponsors homework. And it's not school anymore. So that's good.Summer school. Let me ask you, in terms of the particular asset classes, where do you have these conversations, a client reaches out and says, I want to talk about CITs, or maybe you bring it up in the meeting, the quarterly meeting. Are there asset classes that stick out in terms of where the interest lies?Like, for example, more efficient asset classes like an S&P 500, as an example.Edward McIlveen, CFA, Francis LLCYeah, S&P 500 would certainly be one of them, but probably the more impactful one from an expense standpoint is going to be around the target retirement date portfolios. And so when you think about some of the bigger providers in the marketplace, T. Rowe Price, Vanguard, there's a lot of savings that comes along with this.Terms and Privacy PolicyEU DSA contactPrivacy & Cookie SettingsMore Info