BlackRock Extends iRetire Technology to Manage Decumulation Phase of Retirement

Business Wire

Provides Advisors with Technology to Create Plans for Spending Retirement Savings, Generating Sustainable Lifetime Income

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BlackRock (NYSE:BLK) has developed innovative technology for financial advisors to help solve one their clients’ most vexing challenges – understanding not just how to accumulate retirement savings to help meet their spending goals, but how to spend their assets in retirement. iRetire^® can now deliver a comprehensive accumulation and decumulation framework for estimated sustainable retirement income that financial advisors can tailor to each client’s unique circumstances and preferences.

What makes retirement planning so difficult for advisors is the need to simultaneously manage the ups and downs of the market without knowing how long their client is going to live. iRetire gives advisors a new way to help navigate these uncertainties by providing them with the tools to engage in a relatable, repeatable conversation that is sophisticated enough to help manage the problem and simple enough to use with clients.

“Helping investors generate and maintain sustainable retirement income has been referred to as the ‘silver bullet’ of retirement planning, and a truly effective solution has eluded advisors and investors for decades,” said Frank Porcelli, Chairman of BlackRock’s U.S. Wealth Advisory business. “iRetire empowers advisors to help clients manage their journey with the help of a powerful, integrated approach that not only helps clients accumulate retirement savings, but also deploy those assets throughout retirement.”

Taking Clients To and Through Retirement

iRetire is an end-to-end retirement planning framework that financial advisors can use to take clients to and through retirement. It provides advisors and their clients with a powerful and sophisticated institutional asset management process that is backed by Aladdin^®, the same industry leading, global multi-asset technology platform that powers risk and portfolio management at many of the world’s leading institutions, including BlackRock, and the methodology that powers the firm’s innovative series of retirement income indexes, CoRI^®.

Since launching in 2015, iRetire today is available to more than 70,000 advisors nationwide, delivering a suite of capabilities that, in the years leading up to a client’s retirement, allow advisors to engage in a relatable savings and investing discussion focused on saving toward a retirement income goal. With the addition of iRetire’s decumulation capability, an advisor can help manage their client’s spending phase in retirement as well. Once the client reaches retirement age, an advisor can help them understand how much estimated sustainable income they could spend from their portfolio each year during retirement to help meet their goals.

“iRetire was built from the ground up to provide advisors with advanced technology and established institutional investment techniques to better navigate their clients retirement journey,” said Chip Castille, BlackRock’s Chief Retirement Strategist. “By seeking to manage market and longevity risk together, and focusing on specific retirement outcomes, iRetire provides a means for investors to gain clarity and confidence about the path ahead. We hope this new approach can help investors embrace increased longevity instead of worrying about how to pay for it.”

Some clients may have immediate needs or retirement spending expectations that an advisor may want to address, so iRetire allows advisors to quickly and easily adjust portfolios or add inputs, in real-time, to illustrate the potential impact to estimated sustainable spending that may result from making a change. This flexibility allows advisors to be responsive to specific client preferences, while reinforcing straightforward and transparent discussions about the spending a client might achieve in retirement.

“The need for financial advice is greater than ever as savers face global and geopolitical uncertainty, prolonged low interest rates, and longer lifespans. At the same time, the wealth management industry is undergoing rapid transformation as a result of changing demographics, new regulations and technological advances,” Porcelli said. “iRetire is designed to powerfully respond to all of these forces, leveraging BlackRock’s industry-leading technology and insights to enable advisors to demonstrate their value to clients by facilitating a deeper dialogue.”

About iRetire

BlackRock launched iRetire^® as part of its commitment to help reframe the retirement challenge, providing new approaches using the firm’s proprietary technology solutions and support. iRetire’s innovative approach to retirement planning is available to more than 70,000 financial advisors across the U.S.

iRetire empowers advisors with sophisticated institutional data, risk engines and portfolio construction tools, all displayed on an interface designed for advisors to use with their clients. The platform helps advisors guide their clients to and through retirement. It shows clients how much income their current savings could generate annually in retirement and how changes in behavior (e.g., working longer, saving more, spending less, changing their investment strategy) could help them stay on track toward achieving their income goals. With that analysis in hand, an advisor can use iRetire to offer for client consideration a series of model portfolios designed for effective allocation of retirement assets, either to help close a prospective income gap or to stay on track toward a retirement income goal. Once an investor successfully reaches retirement, advisors can use iRetire to help navigate their client’s spending goals through retirement. This end-to-end comprehensive approach to creating a sustainable retirement income plan can help advisors build client confidence, deepen relationships and systematically grow and retain business.

About BlackRock

BlackRock is a global leader in investment management, risk management and advisory services for institutional and retail clients. At March 31, 2017, BlackRock’s AUM was $5.4 trillion. BlackRock helps clients around the world meet their goals and overcome challenges with a range of products that include separate accounts, mutual funds, iShares^® (exchange-traded funds), and other pooled investment vehicles. BlackRock also offers risk management, advisory and enterprise investment system services to a broad base of institutional investors through BlackRock Solutions^®. As of March 31, 2017, the firm had approximately 13,000 employees in more than 30 countries and a major presence in global markets, including North and South America, Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East and Africa. For additional information, please visit the Company’s website at www.blackrock.com | Twitter: @blackrock_news | Blog: www.blackrockblog.com | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/blackrock

IMPORTANT: The projections or other information generated by the iRetire tool (the “tool”) regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes are hypothetical in nature, do not reflect actual investment results and are not guarantees of future results. Results may vary with each use and over time.

Any information contained in or generated by the tool should not be construed as or relied upon as investment advice, research or a recommendation by BlackRock Investments, LLC or any of its affiliates (collectively, “BlackRock”) regarding the use or suitability of any particular fund or overall investment strategy. The tool is designed to be used in consultation with an advisor, and should not be relied on as a primary basis for an investment decision. Only an investor and his or her advisor know enough about the investor's circumstances to make an informed investment decision.

The tool and BlackRock’s CoRI methodology do not guarantee future income or protect against loss of principal. There can be no assurance that an investment strategy based on the tool or BlackRock’s CoRI methodology will be successful.

Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal.

©2017 BlackRock, Inc. All rights reserved. BLACKROCK, iRETIRE, ALADDIN, and CoRI are registered trademarks of BlackRock, Inc. or its subsidiaries in the United States and elsewhere. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.