What is a Collective Investment Trust?

A Collective Investment Trust (CIT) is also known as a commingled or collective fund. CITs
are:
Tax-exempt, pooled investment vehicles maintained by a bank or trust
company exclusively for qualified plans, including DC and DB plans.
Not subject to the Investment Company Act of 1940, means not registered with the
SEC. Hence less regulated. CITs are supervised by the Office of the
Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).
Less expensive for investors, due to lower marketing, overhead and
compliance-related costs.
Pension Protection Act of 2006 gave tailwind to CITs and as the act
approved them as default investment options for defined contribution plans.
Collective Trusts are unregistered investment vehicles, like hedge funds. Mutual funds, by
contrast, are registered investment vehicles.
What registration means is that an investment vehicle, like a mutual fund, is registered
with the SEC/FSA, etc... and is compelled by law to disclose monthly performance and
portfolios. That is not the case with collective trusts.
============================== ===

Tax Status: Collective trust funds are exempt from taxation under IRS Revenue Ruling
2011-1 since they can only be purchased by certain qualified retirement plans such as
401(K) and defined benefit plans.

Dividends & Capital Gains: Because collective trust funds are only available as retirement
plan investments, they do not pay out dividends or capital gains. All income and earnings
from the sale of securities are reinvested back into the fund with a resulting
increase/decrease in share price. In other words, any profit or loss to the fund is reflected in
the daily share price. The exception to this are stable value trusts. In order to maintain a
daily share price of $1 per share, all dividends for these funds accrue daily and are
reinvested back into investor accounts on the last business day of each month as dividends.

Source: Invesco

============================== ===

The following companies offers CITs

1. Fidelity Investments (largest)

2. BlackRock (second largest)
3. Invesco
4. Vanguard
5. T. Rowe Price,
6. Charles Schwab & Co.
 The following companies possibly offer CITs but information is sparse.

1. Ameriprise Financial
2. Benefit Trust Company
3. Capital Group
4. Charles Schwab Bank
5. Galliard Capital Management
6. Global Trust Company
7. Great-West Trust Company
8. Hand Benefits & Trust Company, a BPAS Company
9. ICMA-RC
10. JP Morgan
11. Manning & Napier
12. MFS/ MFS Heritage Trust Company
13. Northern Trust
14. OFI Global/OppenheimerFunds
15. PNC Bank
16. Reliance Trust
17. RidgeWorth Investments
18. Russell Investments
19. SEI
20. State Street
21. Union Bond and Trust Company and Principal Trust Company, members of the Principal
Financial Group
22. Voya Investment Management
23. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A
24. Wilmington Trust Retirement and Institutional Services Company

Source: Coalition of Collective Investment Trusts