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Annexus, a leading retirement product design company, announced that Athene BCA 2.0, one of its flagship fixed indexed annuities, won the “FIA of the Year” award at the 2022 SRP Americas Conference in Chicago, September 15.
The Athene BCA 2.0 fixed indexed annuity (FIA) received the award based on product features, benefits and client satisfaction. The event was hosted by Structured Retail Products (SRP), the leading global provider of data and analysis for financial institutions involved in the manufacturing and distribution of structured products.
Annexus partnered with Athene, a leading provider of retirement savings products, and leading index designers, including Professor Robert Shiller, legendary Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel, Bank of America, Barclays, Citi, Merrill Lynch, S&P and WisdomTree to build one of the industry’s most diversified index lineups in an FIA designed to help provide “all-weather” returns in today’s challenging environment.
“I am delighted that our Barclays Global index is part of this award-winning FIA. The Annexus strategy is taking the principle of diversification seriously, to the point of putting together for consumers a broad array of thoughtfully defined indices,” said Professor Shiller.
The Athene BCA Suite of Fixed Indexed Annuities offers one of the industry’s strongest combinations of accumulation potential, principal protection, income, and legacy benefits. It features two of the top-producing indices year-to-date, the WisdomTree Siegel Strategic Value Index™ and the Shiller Barclays Global Index, which both have positive year-to-date performance when the S&P 500 is down -24% year to date.
“I am pleased the WisdomTree Siegel Strategic Value Index has performed so well,” said Professor Siegel. “The index design was heavily inspired by my research and value approach to investing. It is based upon a systematic value investment strategy, which is an approach that has worked well over long periods.”
“The goal is to deliver greater consumer value through changing markets,” Annexus Co-Founder and CEO Ron Shurts said, “We’ve provided financial professionals with an alternative to protect their clients’ assets, while benefiting from the potential growth of indices designed by some of the largest investment banks and academic thought leaders.”
“In this economic downturn, the WisdomTree Siegel Index favors sectors that have strong earnings and momentum relative to their current price and avoids those sectors that are expensive relative to their fundamental,” said Professor Siegel. “A unique design of our index, which has worked extremely well, is that it shorts the S&P 500® Index while going long in sectors which have strong value characteristics.”
This year was the bond market’s worst start since 1970, with these traditional safe alternatives losing over 13%. “I’m not going to say that bonds have never looked worse, but fixed income is seriously challenged going forward,” said Tom Haines, EVP, Annexus. “FIAs and, specifically, Athene BCA has demonstrated its ability to be an attractive portfolio alternative, and even more so this year. Athene BCA offers the most diversified group of leading indices in the FIA market.”
“We are seeing an increase in the number of financial advisors, RIAs and insurance professionals offering Athene BCA fixed indexed annuities,” Shurts said. “It is exciting to see Athene BCA recognized by the industry and reinforces the advisors’ decision to increasingly use Athene BCA to help meet their clients’ needs in retirement.”
Annexus designs solutions to help Americans grow and protect their retirement savings. For over a decade, Annexus has developed market-leading fixed indexed annuities and indexed universal life insurance products. Annexus has forged relationships with many of the industry’s leading insurance carriers and the world’s largest investment banks. Find out more about Annexus and its products at annexus.com.
Athene, through its subsidiaries, is a leading financial services company specializing in retirement services with total assets of $234.3 billion as of June 30, 2022 and operations in the United States, Bermuda, and Canada. Athene specializes in helping its customers achieve financial security and is a solutions provider to institutions. Founded in 2009, Athene is Driven to Do More for our policyholders, business partners, shareholders, and the communities in which we work and live. For more information, please visit www.athene.com.
Shiller is an American economist, best-selling author and Sterling Professor of Economics, Professor of Finance and Fellow at the International Centre for Finance at Yale University. Professor Shiller is ranked among the 100 most influential economists in the world.
Siegel is the Russell E. Palmer Professor of Finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Siegel received his Ph.D. from M.I.T. and has written and lectured extensively about the economy and financial markets, monetary policy and interest rates and stock and bond returns. Along with heading the macroeconomics module of the Morgan Bank Finance Program in New York, he is the academic director of the U.S. Securities Industry Institute and is on the Advisory Board of the Asian Securities Industry Association.
SRP is the most comprehensive online database of structured products in the world with over 22 million individual product listings from almost 3,000 companies, representing total sales of over $8.73tn. Our product and market data spans over 16+ years across 54 different countries and is supplemented by extensive independent analysis, daily news, people moves and exclusive interviews from key figures within the structured product space. Learn more at structuredretailproducts.com.
Athene Annuity and Life Company (61689), headquartered in West Des Moines, Iowa, and issuing annuities in 49 states (excluding NY) and D.C., and Athene Annuity & Life Assurance Company of New York (68039), headquartered in Pearl River, NY, and issuing annuities in New York, are not undertaking to provide investment advice for any individual or in any individual situation, and therefore nothing in this should be read as investment advice.
