401(k) Real Talk Episode 176: December 3, 2025
Welcome to this week’s edition of 401(k) Real Talk, where Fred Barstein, contributing editor for WealthManagement.com’s RPA channel, reviews all of last week’s industry news and selects the five most important/interesting stories.
Worth reading/listening/noting:
Read the full raw transcript below:
Greetings & a warm welcome to this week’s edition of 401k Real Talk. This is Fred Barstein contributing editor at WealthManagement.com’s RPA omnichannel and CEO at TRAU, TPSU & 401kTV – I review all of this week’s stories and select the most important and interesting ones providing open honest and candid discussion you will not get anyway else. So let’s get real!
FIRST STORY
With the acquisition of the assets of flexPATH by Great Gray owned by Madison Dearborn, the PE firm has put together an interesting wealth and retirement firm from the pieces of what started at NFP, a firm they sold to AON in 2024 for over $13 bn.
Along with re-acquiring the wealth and retirement advisory divisions from AON for $2.7 bn last year in the newly named Wealthspire with a whopping $580 bn AUM, Madison Dearborn had lifted out the assets of Wilmington Trust in 2022, now Great Gray, from M&T Bank which subsequently acquired RPAG this year started by Vince Giovannazo and Nick della Vedova who had sold their retirement practice decades ago and led NFP retirement where they created flexPATH which was a founding partner of Wilmington Trust and.
Great Gray is buying flexPath’s assets which has an estimated $100 bn, which they already include in their $270 bn, along with their distribution but not their 338 advisory services.
Next story:
We can now officially put a fork in the latest attempt to redefine what it means to be a fiduciary as the DOL moved to dismiss its appeal of a federal court’s injunction against the Biden fiduciary rule.
The dismissal mirrors Trump 1.0 action against the Obama rule with some wondering whether a new iteration is forth coming.
But for now, the old fiduciary definition remains though most RPAs are acting as fiduciaries anyway and all advisors must still comply with PTE 2020-02 requiring justification and documentation when rolling assets out of a DC plan into an IRA.
Next story:
Not for lack of effort by providers but the latest PSCA study for plan year 2024 shows that in-plan lifetime adoption remains stagnant at just 9%.
Some cite litigation risk as an impediment while others point to transferability issues and pushback against annuities which had been driven out of DC plans by mutual funds as well as the reluctance of plans to retain assets of separated participants. So the question is what will it take to increase demand by plans and participants for a service that seems so obvious and necessary?
Next story:
An analysis of AdvizorPro’s RIA database shows that RIAs are gaining more retirement assets by fewer firms.
AdvizorPro reports that 6500 RIAs explicitly serve retirement plans with $8 tr AUM up from $6.6 tr in 2024 but the number of RIAs serving this market declined by 11%. The median AUM is $10m while the average is $1.2 bn indicating that larger firms like Captrust and Creative Planning which recently acquired Sageview are dominating.
Do RIAs that have at least some focus on retirement plans have an advantage? The recent NMG study indicates that they do over other RIAs and even RPAs still trying to grow their wealth practices.
FINALLY
2026 promises to be an interesting and pivotal year for the defined contribution industry, plan sponsors, advisors and the providers which support them facing critical decisions.
Read my recent WealthManagement.com/RPA column about the 10 biggest decisions facing plan sponsors in 2026 and how advisors and providers should be helping.
FINISH
So those were the most important stories from the past week. I listed a few others I thought were worth reading covering:
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How Aggregators are reshaping workplace savings plans
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House bill would raise the bar on ERISA litigation
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Law firms are the big winners as PE race to capture DC assets
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Courts continue to dismiss forfeiture lawsuits
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SEC Chair advocates for PE in 401k plans and litigation reform
Please let me know if I missed anything or if you would like to comment. Otherwise I look forward to speaking to you next week on 401k Real Talk.