November 2002

NEW FINANCIAL CONSULTING FIRM IS LAUNCHED, VOWS SUPERIOR RESPONSIVENESS, FULL ACCOUNTABILITY

Washington, D.C. — Cheiron, Inc., an employee-owned financial services firm formed to offer employee benefit plan sponsors and financial consulting clients new standards of insight and innovation, opened its doors for business November 4, 2002.

The firm, which specializes in providing solutions to complex financial issues, expects to attract a blue-chip client list shortly of multi-billion dollar public, corporate and Taft-Hartley pension and health funds.

"It became very clear to me that, in the aftermath of Enron-Arthur Andersen and similar scandals, there was an urgent need for a firm like Cheiron that will stand behind its work instead of running for cover" says Bennett Shaver, Cheiron’s President. "There are creative solutions to the problems our industry is facing, and Cheiron will share them with its clients."

"And the stakes today are huge — the retirement security of tens of millions of existing and future retirees as well as the fiscal health of states, counties, labor union, association, and corporate pension funds — hundreds of billions of dollars are on the line," he adds.

Cheiron’s service menu includes the following:

• Innovative pension liability and asset valuations. Cheiron efficiently provides quarterly assessments and "what-if stress testing" to help clients address funding issues before they reach crisis levels. Conventional valuations only give pension plan sponsors an annual look at last year’s funding status. In today’s highly volatile economic conditions and securities markets, more frequent and timely information can buy valuable time to make funding adjustments.
• Creative analysis of medical and health plan costs and trends. The return of double-digit health cost inflation is making this a critical area of focus, even a matter of survival, for employers and many health care systems. Cheiron’s cutting-edge analytical and forecasting tools empower clients to anticipate future costs and liabilities and adjust their plan designs and strategies accordingly.
• Unbiased investment performance measurement and analysis. At a time when conflicts of interest within the institutional investment community are rampant and have contributed to billions of dollars of investment losses, Cheiron’s seasoned analysts come with no strings attached. Cheiron has no affiliation with investment management or investment banking services, and focuses exclusively on what’s best for its clients and their fund beneficiaries.
• Empowering, interactive financial models. These tools help organizations make smarter strategic investment and resource deployment decisions. Cheiron believes its clients are best served by being able to "sit at the controls" with powerful, sophisticated modeling tools so they can make the best-informed financial decisions — without having to open their checkbook and pay a consultant every time they want to test a new scenario.

"Most actuarial consulting firms today are interacting with their clients the same way they did in 1945. Information technology has lowered their costs dramatically, but they aren’t sharing these savings with their clients," says Cheiron lead consultant Gene Kalwarski, F.S.A.

"And it’s not simply a matter of price. The approaches we are using will be much more responsive to client needs in terms of timeliness and flexibility," he adds.

Kalwarski is a nationally-recognized entrepreneur and innovator who has developed and provided analytical solutions for a "Who’s Who" parade of domestic institutional clients, as well as the World Bank, European governments and the U.S. Congress.

A hallmark of Cheiron’s work is responsive and personalized service. Each Cheiron client becomes the personal responsibility of one of Cheiron’s senior consultants. Besides Kalwarski, Cheiron’s senior consulting staff, who collectively have logged more than 125 years of professional consulting service primarily to multibillion dollar funds, includes Fiona Liston F.S.A., Peter Hardcastle C.F.A., Karen Mallett F.S.A., John Colberg F.S.A., Chris Mietlicki, Margaret Tempkin, and Service and Development Director Constance Mauro.

Cheiron’s Quality control procedures are rigid. Estimates are framed, as appropriate, within ranges of probable occurrence to eliminate nasty surprises.

The firm is named for the immortal and independent minded centaur from Greek mythology. Cheiron was educated by Apollo and Artemis and then, sharing his virtue and advanced knowledge, become the mentor and tutor of the heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey.