Methodology
The 2025 Chief Investment Officer and PLANSPONSOR Outsourced Investment Manager Survey was conducted from April through June via the Qualtrics platform. A total of 153 respondents completed the survey, which delved into decisionmaking about retirement plans’ investment oversight and the value this service can provide.
The survey gathered information from respondents whose plans are eligible to use, and in many cases do use, an outsourced CIO or a 3(38) fiduciary. The OCIO information collected includes the average number of respondents’ investment staff, by organization type and investable portfolio size. Additionally, respondents were asked about: their reasons and goals for outsourcing, their providers’ fee structure, the value-added services their OCIO supplies and the most important things their provider can deliver.
The information collected regarding 3(38) investment managers includes: whether and how a 3(38) fiduciary is used, by plan asset size; the primary reasons for and for not seeking a 3(38) fiduciary; and the factors that counted most when selecting a provider. Additionally, respondents were asked about the impact the fiduciary was making—on their investment menu, investment performance, administrative burden, etc.—and their satisfaction with the services.
We present the 3(38) data on PLANSPONSOR.com and the OCIO data on ai-CIO.com. The strategy behind the split publishing is to align the pertinent data with the demographics and interests of the audience of that site. The complete analysis and report written from the survey are available as one publication through our e-commerce store.
For more information on data available to purchase, or to take part in a future survey, please email surveys@issmediasolutions.com.
—Garrett Cox