OUR HISTORY

StraightLine was officially incorporated in June 2002 in Troy, Michigan. The reason for its creation was that the employees in the U.S. had little or no help in managing their retirement accounts. There was certainly plenty of advice and an occasional financial advisor that would attempt to help, but the real issue was to build a company whose sole purpose was to competently and ethically manage the employee's accounts on their behalf.

The numbers are quite staggering, as there are well over 45 million retirement participants with over $3 trillion in assets. On the surface it sounds like a service that should have been built a long time ago because of the need, but the problem was found in three areas. One, these accounts are too small for major Wall Street firms to be interested in (the average account size is about $70,000), two, for a long time there was a perceived fiduciary liability associated with allowing this type of service in a company, and three, financial services firms could not figure a way to make this service profitable.

In December of 2001, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued a ruling on behalf of Sun America that allowed certain independent firms to provide this service for employees. The restrictions at that time were that the firm had to be totally independent of the plan, that they use appropriate research to build the portfolios, and they not be compensated by anyone but the employee.

Although this ruling was far from perfect, an ex-Wall Street veteran with vast experience on the money management, personal portfolio, and plan design side decided that it was time to construct a company that not only complied with the DOL ruling, but expanded it to create a company that will always act in the absolute best interest of the employee.

This means many things, but the most important principle was to eliminate the "broker" element from the equation by:

• Allowing only the research department to make investment decisions based on solid institutional analysis. This essentially ensures the employee has a team of professionals managing their account.
• Never to sell any commissionable financial products, so that all the decisions made are for the right reasons.
• Create a company where client service and continuing education are the primary drivers to our mission statement.

The first task was to build the research piece, which is vital in driving value and confidence to the employee. We sought out and obtained the financial industry's best analytical tools for that purpose alone. From June 2002 through December of 2003 StraightLine did nothing but perfect the use of these tools and develop the strategy to disseminate its abilities across potentially several million participants.

In 2006, the passing of the Pension Protection Act officially set the guidelines to allow independent third party research firms to provide this service. It speaks to the research tools required to analyze the investments and construct appropriate asset allocation models, as well as how these services should be delivered and billed. With its signing, a professional management option can be added to employer sponsored plans that allows personal one on one delivery without any fear of fiduciary liability.

Since our inception we have added employees at over 125 firms nationwide and we are considered the leader in responsible retirement care. As in the beginning, our mission continues to be the absolute best financial services company available for employees enrolled in their retirement plan by always acting in their best interest.

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