Cerity Partners Merges with Gilbert & Cook, Building on More Than 30 Years Serving Clients and Families in Iowa
You face a myriad of challenges as the administrator of your company’s defined benefit plan— funding liabilities, shifting regulations, escalating costs, and longer life expectancies, just to name a few. Addressing these challenges is essential for minimizing the impact on your company’s financials.
Our defined benefit plan advisors understand the intricacies of managing active, frozen, and terminating plans, and work closely with you to develop a course of action to mitigate risk, reduce costs, and drive better results.
We can serve as your Outsourced Chief Investment Officer (OCIO) , 3(21) co-fiduciary, or 3(38) fiduciary investment manager, assuming some or all of the responsibility for selecting and monitoring your plan’s investments. We’ll help you determine which level of delegation is right for you based on your plan committee’s investment knowledge, preferred involvement, and risk exposure.
Our finance, HR, and benefits teams have many responsibilities as they take care of the company and its employees. We coordinate and help execute all the investment and administrative tasks related to your defined benefit plan—giving them more time for their other priorities.
Between the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) premiums, investment fees, and third-party vendors, the cost to maintain your defined benefit plan can quickly add up. Our defined benefit plan consultants analyze your current fee structure to identify cost-saving opportunities without sacrificing value. These cost reductions can decrease the time it takes to fully fund or terminate your plan, potentially saving years in plan administration.
We work with open, closed, and frozen pension plans of all sizes and complexity. Even if your plan is fully funded and on its way to being terminated, there are many chances for missteps that can cost time and money, if you don’t understand all your options."Steve Malbasa, Partner
Our retirement plan consultants understand the intricacies of managing active, frozen, and terminating defined benefit plans. They work closely with you to develop a course of action to mitigate risk, reduce costs, and drive better results.
With increasing attention focused on fiduciary roles and responsibilities, maintaining a sound retirement plan is more important than ever before. We help you measure five critical dimensions of plan success to increase your plan’s effectiveness and the retirement readiness of your employees.
We work with your board of directors, HR, and executive compensation teams to develop powerful nonqualified plan solutions that positively impact your recruitment, retention, and bottom line.
A retirement plan benefit, without the retirement plan hassle. Provide a retirement plan benefit for your employees, that also makes sense for your business.
Implementing and growing successful ESOPs that drive employee engagement through an active ownership culture.
September 16, 2026 — Over a decade ago, a friend of our firm became a founding partner of a small corporate venture capital fund (“CVC”) for a company with a well-known brand, and he would frequently complain about one of the most frustrating parts of his job: pitching investment opportunities to his startup investment committee (“the IC”). He described […]
September 15, 2026 — If you deferred gains in a Qualified Opportunity Fund, any you haven’t yet recognized will be treated as income on your 2026 return—regardless of whether your fund has distributed a dollar. Now is the time to prepare for the tax bill coming due.
September 14, 2026 — Futures markets see a 90% chance of a 25-basis-point hike at this week’s Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and while central banks rarely stop at one hike, equities have historically weathered first hikes well and current economic strengths—insulated from rate changes—suggest tightening may avoid triggering a recession.