Hand Benefits & Trust Celebrates its 60th Anniversary

Hand Benefits & Trust (HB&T), a pioneering, third-generation retirement business based in Houston, is celebrating its 60^th anniversary.

HB&T, a BPAS company, was founded as American Industries Trust Company in 1963 by William W. Hand. Today,  HB&T is led by Stephen Hand, the company’s third-generation President and CEO, whose brothers, William David Hand and John Hand, have also worked at HB&T. But, the company has family roots as a retirement business that actually span nearly 85 years. Back in 1939, Hand’s grandfather, Thomas E. Hand, started Hand & Associates as a pension consulting firm. In 1963, the trust company was created and built on a focus that has sustained the business as it heads into its seventh decade of offering retirement plan trust services and innovative solutions through collective investment funds – a rapidly expanding niche in the retirement industry.   

“A collective investment fund is an investment product that looks and feels very much like a mutual fund,” explains Stephen Hand, the company’s third-generation President and CEO. “But, it’s regulated by a  banking regulator—in our case, the Texas Department of Banking – the IRS and the DOL.”

Unlike mutual funds, collective funds are not available to the general public. They’re only available to qualified retirement plans. “As a result, they don’t have a lot of the extraneous expenses that you see in a mutual fund,” added Hand. “That is one of many reasons these funds have drawn more attention in recent decades, and why they are poised to draw even more attention in the years ahead. It’s an exciting time to be in this business.”

In 2007, Hand Benefits & Trust became part of BPAS, a leading national provider of retirement plans, benefit plans, fund administration, and collective investment trusts, with offices across the United States and Puerto Rico. Coincidentally, BPAS is celebrating its own 50^th anniversary this year.

According to the US Census Bureau, fewer than 12 percent of small businesses launched in the United States still exist ten years after they were founded. So what led to the longevity of HB&T?

“If there’s one thing that has kept both businesses (BPAS and HB&T) thriving for so many decades, it’s service,” said Paul Neveu, BPAS CEO.  “We care for our clients and we care for each other. It’s our culture that allows us to thrive.”

“Growing up, my father and grandfather taught us, ‘Promise what you can deliver, and deliver what you promise,’” Hand recalled. “Throughout our history, we’ve competed with much larger companies, and we had to ask ourselves, ‘What is our niche going to be, and how are we going to drive success?’ Collective investment funds became our niche, and service is, was, and will always be the key to success.”

According to Hand, the key is hiring good people. “Through the whole evolution of retirement plans, to the rise and fall of defined benefit plans or pensions, to when 401(K )plans changed from quarterly valuations to monthly valuations and then daily valuations, or when the Internet first came along and we had to adjust our technology needs, we had to have employees that were willing to adapt to change. And we found them.” Many of its employees have been with HB&T for more than 20 years which is unheard of in today’s workplace.

Today, HB&T operates as part of the institutional trust division of BPAS, along with Global Trust Company and Northeast Retirement Services (all of which reside within BPAS). This institutional trust practice supports the full suite of collective investment funds, common funds, and a full range of trust and administrative services, such as transfer agency, unitization, master trust administration, fund-of-funds administration, and more. We work with fund custodians, asset owners, financial intermediaries, consulting firms, and plan sponsors to deliver a range of solutions needed in today’s financial marketplace.

As HB&T looks ahead to the next 60 years, Stephen Hand says he expects to see a large influx of business from the 403(b) market. “In the near future, 403(b) participants, which include people who work in public education and a wide variety of non-profit entities, will have the ability to invest in collective investment funds. Access to these funds was not available to them in the past, and the change will definitely benefit participants in the long run. So we’re gearing up for that.”

“At BPAS, collectively, we come to work every day to help people retire,” Hand says. “We’re fortunate to be a small piece of that.”