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BrightScope Announces the Top 10 Treasury Inflation Protected Securities Funds Held in America's 401k Plans

Investment Managers Can Get Unprecedented Visibility Into Funds Through BrightScope

BrightScope (www.brightscope.com), a leading provider of independent financial information and investment research, today announced the Top 10 Treasury Inflation Protected Securities (TIPS) Fund Distribution List for the 401k and defined contribution industry. This list is part of a series of rankings BrightScope will regularly publish to provide investment managers, mutual fund companies, investors, and others with more insight into the top funds and managers in the retirement marketplace. The proliferation of this critical information will dramatically increase the efficiency of the marketplace and lead to lower cost plans and better outcomes for the 60 million Americans who depend on their 401k plan for retirement.

"TIPS are attractive in today's economic environment because they offer a buffer against inflation and allow investors to preserve purchasing power while earning a small real rate of return," said Ryan Alfred, President and co-founder of BrightScope. "Being able to access detailed information and analytics on which funds and managers have the best distribution of TIPS funds gives asset managers a competitive advantage and allows them to make more informed decisions on behalf of their clients."

Since its infancy, the 401k marketplace has suffered from a lack of quality data that is comprehensive enough to be useful for most strategic functions. Historically, it has been virtually impossible to determine a specific mutual fund's total distribution in 401k plans. BrightScope's revolutionary database includes a detailed investment menu on more than 50,000 plans, representing nearly 90 percent of all the assets in 401ks. With this dataset, BrightScope is able to provide detailed analysis of total fund distributions.

The Top 10 TIPS funds by total distribution include:

1. PIMCO Real Return

2. TIAA-CERF Inflation-Linked Bond

3. Vanguard Inflation-Protected Securities

4. SSgA Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities Index

5. BlackRock US TIPS

6. Fidelity Inflation-Protected Bond

7. American Century Inflation-Adjusted Bond

8. SSgA Government TIPS Bond Fund

9. Western Asset Inflation Indexed Plus Bond

10. American Beacon Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities

BrightScope's technology uncovers audited financial data on investment funds held within real 401k plans. The BrightScope database is superior to the industry's traditional survey-based approach. When surveys are done, they usually capture no more than 10 percent of total distribution and skew heavily towards funds prominent in the survey company's client base. Through BrightScope Beacon, investment managers can access comprehensive data, giving them a transparent view into their own fund distribution, as well as the distribution of their competitors.

For more information, please visit www.brightscope.com.

About BrightScope
BrightScope is a financial information company that brings transparency to opaque markets through independent research and analysis. Delivered through web-based software, BrightScope data drives better decision-making for individual investors, corporate plan sponsors, asset managers, broker-dealers, and financial advisors. The BrightScope Rating™, developed in partnership with leading independent 401k fiduciaries, reviews more than 200 unique data inputs per plan and calculates a single numerical score which defines plan quality at the company level. In April 2011, the company launched BrightScope Advisor Pages™, the first comprehensive and publicly available directory of financial advisors designed to help consumers discover information and conduct due diligence on wealth management professionals. BrightScope also markets a suite of data analytics software products to Fortune 1000 companies, asset managers, broker-dealers, financial advisors, and other market participants. Public ratings for more than 55,000 retirement plans as well as rating definitions, criteria and methodologies, and information on more than 450,000 financial advisors are available for free at www.brightscope.com.