CIEBA Separation Spurs New Approach Toward Benefits Panel.

Following a decision by the Committee on the Investment of Employee Benefit Assets (CIEBA) to end its affiliation with FEI, FEI's leadership plans to explore ways of creating a more expansive group to monitor benefits issues.

CIEBA's separation, effective June 1, ends a relationship that began in 1985, when the group was formed to provide a voice in Washington exclusively for corporate financial officers who administer and manage, as fiduciaries, the investment of funds for employee pension plans. "CIEBA has historically functioned independently, and the committee's desire to continue to do so unfortunately made this outcome unavoidable," FEI's top officers said in a letter to members.

"This decision by CIEBA has given FEI the opportunity to rethink the appropriate mission for its benefits-related Technical Committees," said outgoing FEI chairman Fred Allardyce in a letter to CIBBA members. "The FEI National Leadership Board believes a group should be created to better involve a wider spectrum of FEI members in pension benefit and asset investment policy issues that are critically important to maintaining a competitive corporate workforce. To take advantage of this opportunity, FEI has expanded the charter of the Committee on Benefits Finance (CBF).

"CBF has traditionally focused on employee benefit issues, and will now include in its deliberations policy issues covering benefit asset management as well as benefit design concerns. In this expanded role, CBF can draw on the synergies between benefit plan design issues and benefit asset management concerns to better leverage FEI's overall visibility and effectiveness."

Allardyce's letter noted that he has asked Frank Becker, chairman of the CBF, to establish a task force that will work through the summer to establish a structure and agenda for a CBF Subcommittee on Asset Management (SAM). Members interested in participating on this task force or have a particular expertise they would like to contribute should contact Grace Hinchman, FBI's Vice President of Government Relations, at [e-mail] or 202/457-6203.