BlackRock LifePath® Index Retire Instl LIRIX

On Feb. 8, BlackRock announced the transition of Amy Whitelaw, head of Americas portfolio management on its ETF and Index Investments team, to a new non-portfolio-management role within the company. As a result, she’s been removed as a named manager on the BlackRock LifePath Index target-date series and a slew of exchange-traded funds. BlackRock replaced her with Paul Whitehead, co-head of the index equity team. Whitelaw didn’t have any day-to-day responsibilities for the series, nor was she a key contributor to the research underpinning the glide path and asset allocation. Instead, the team relied on her extensive expertise in index investing to supplement its work on this index-based target-date series. We expect Whitehead to fill a similar role on the team, and his deep background in equity trading and indexing should serve investors in this series well going forward. The series retains its High rating for People, and its cheapest share classes continue to earn Morningstar Analyst Ratings of Gold; the more expensive shares earn Silver and Bronze ratings.