RETIREMENT
PLAN ADVISER
TEAM YEAR
FINALIST
OF
THE
Graystone Consulting—
Danvers, Morgan Stanley
Smith Barney
Matthew McLaughlin,
Al Hammond, Pete Ciovacco
Danvers, Massachusetts
Graystone Consulting in Danvers, Massachusetts, takes a holistic approach to advising
retirement plan clients.
The approach involves a combination of plan management, investment
management and participant services,
says Matthew McLaughlin, senior
institutional consultant at Graystone
in Danvers, a business of Morgan
Stanley Smith Barney LLC.
“All three of those levers have to
work together to have an optimum
plan, optimum outcomes,” he says.
According to McLaughlin, Graystone in Danvers sets the stage for the
participant experience by educating
clients about automatic features,
fiduciary responsibilities, vendors and
plan administrators.
There are approximately 45 Graystone teams across the country, but
the Danvers location’s specialty is
plan advisers who focus on defined
contribution (DC) plans, McLaughlin
says. Graystone Consulting was
founded in 2009 to provide high-level
investment consulting advice to institutional investors and the upper-tier
private wealth market.
The Graystone team in Danvers
comprises seven members:
McLaughlin, who co-founded the
team and specializes in investment management; Al Hammond,
co-founder who focuses on plan
management, trends in plan design
and legislative issues; Pete Ciovacco,
junior partner specializing in participant services and education; Daniel
Top Row (left to right): Nicole Somers, Daniel O’Shea, Jeffrey Gray, Melissa Mulloy-Mecozzi; Bottom Row (left to right): Matt McLaughlin, Al Hammond, Pete Ciovacco
O’Shea, analyst; Jeffrey Gray, financial adviser; and Nicole Somers
and Melissa Mulloy-Mecozzi, client
services administrators.
The team has 40 DC plan clients
and four defined benefit (DB) plan
clients, with plan sizes ranging
from $15 million to more than $1
billion in plan assets. “If we look at
[the] marketplace and our team, the
larger plans do require a lot more
service,” McLaughlin says. “The
benefit is you’re affecting that many
more participants.”
McLaughlin says one of the things
clients like best about the Graystone
Danvers team is its client advocacy
and proactive attitude in helping
them. “The 401(k) market, in our
minds, is the critical piece for Ameri-
cans,” McLaughlin says.
He also says the team’s approach
to client education is unique. Team
members work to keep clients organized and provide them with relevant,
easy-to-understand information
about trends in the industry, fiduciary
responsibilities and more. The firm
organizes a fiduciary presentation
for each new plan sponsor client and
reviews it with them every couple of
years, as a refresher.
” We feel it’s very important for
the people running the plan to be
educated about the markets and
their different investment managers,”
McLaughlin says. To that end, the
Graystone Danvers team also often
invites guest speakers to talk to the
clients, such as managers who discuss
their investment philosophies and
reasons underperformance can occur.
