401(k) Specialist Issue 4 - 2021 - 27

401(k) PRODUCTS
TAPO JUDGE NO. 2
CHARLES RUFFEL, Kudu Investment Management
Optimistic About
the 401(k)'s Future
" IF YOU UNDERSTAND defined contribution, you understand the most important leg of
financial savings. "
It's a reason Charlie Ruffel still follows the 401(k) and defined contribution space closely, despite
having moved on from direct involvement over a decade ago. A financial journalist by training, he
founded several influential trade publications and is credited with being one of the first to foster a
sense of community within the industry.
" We certainly felt there was an opportunity to create a 401(k) ecosystem, " Ruffel, Managing Partner
and Chairman of Kudu Investment Management said. " The first 401(k) plans obviously came
into being much earlier, but the community was still pretty embryonic in the 1980s and 1990s. What
we did with [the publications], in many ways, was almost a coalescing force. Particularly on the corporate
side, plan sponsors began to recognize that they were a community, with common interests.
I'd like to think we played a role in that. "
He founded Asset International in 1989, which initially published securities industry newsletters,
and uncovered a need for periodicals dedicated to administration and the back office. The result,
Global Custodian, was a success from the beginning.
" As I began to understand that business better, I also gained better insight into the pension
community, " Ruffel added. " We started another magazine that was originally for defined benefit
professionals, but after a quick period, we saw that the action was really on the defined contribution
side, and we pivoted. "
A South African by birth and educated at Cambridge University, he arrived in New York in 1984
for post-graduate studies at Columbia Journalism School. After a brief stint at Institutional Investor,
he struck out on his own. Newsletters led to magazines and magazines to research, events and data.
" Publishing is a brutal business, " he matter-of-factly noted. " You've got to find ancillary products.
Surveys were key to us - we surveyed anything that moved. "
He entered investment banking after Asset International's sale to Austin Ventures in 2010 but
felt the entrepreneurial pull again and, alongside a former Credit Suisse executive, Rob Jakacki, he
co-founded Kudu Investment Management, named for an agile antelope endemic to his homeland,
in 2015. The company takes minority stakes in asset management and wealth management firms and
has made investments in 16 firms thus far. His partners at Kudu include Nick Platt, who was formerly
COO of Asset International.
" I think the best retirement advisors have long understood that wealth management can be an
important part of their business, " Ruffel said when asked about retirement plan advisors entering
wealth management. " There is a natural overlap there. You already have retirement advisors with
wealth practices, and I think they're going to merge and blur over time. They certainly will come
together more than they have. "
Indeed, the next great " unlocking of wealth, " he argued, will be from 401(k) distributions into
wealth management.
Having been there early on, Ruffel is sanguine about its future.
" I still follow defined contribution for a host of different reasons, " he explained. " It's how America
saves. I've always been optimistic about the 401(k) space. Tens of millions of Americans have found
their way to a better retirement because of it. It can always be improved. But I'm a huge believer in
the defined contribution structure. "
ISSUE 4 2021 | 401kSpecialist.com
27
" I think the
best retirement
advisors have
long understood
that wealth
management can
be an important
part of their
business "
Charlie Ruffel is Managing Partner
and Chairman of Kudu Investment
Management.

http://www.401kSpecialist.com

401(k) Specialist Issue 4 - 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of 401(k) Specialist Issue 4 - 2021