BlackRock LifePath Smart Beta Retirement Fund

C000050762 Fund Overview

BlackRock LifePath Smart Beta Retirement Fund is a US mutual fund managed by BlackRock Funds II, categorised as Target Date / Glide Path Allocation. ABC INVEST provides holdings, performance, costs, cashflows, risk data, prospectus documents and SEC filings, sourced from SEC filings.

• Type: US mutual fund
• Manager: BlackRock Funds II
• Category: Target Date / Glide Path Allocation
• Assets under management: $20.67M
• SEC CIK: 0001398078
• SEC series ID: S000018364
• Share class ID: C000050762

C000050762 Investment Objective and Strategy

BlackRock LifePath Smart Beta Retirement Fund describes its objective and strategy as follows, from its latest prospectus filed with the SEC by BlackRock Funds II.

Investment objective

The investment objective of BlackRock LifePath ® Smart Beta Retirement Fund (the “Retirement Fund” or the “Fund”) is to seek to provide for retirement outcomes based on quantitatively measured risk. In pursuit of this objective, the Fund will be broadly diversified across global asset classes.

Principal investment strategy

In pursuit of its investment objective, the Fund, which is a fund of funds, allocates and reallocates its assets among a combination of equity, fixed income and money market funds (the underlying funds) in proportions based on its own comprehensive investment strategy. Under normal circumstances, the Fund intends to invest primarily in affiliated open-end funds and affiliated exchange-traded funds (ETFs). The Fund intends to invest a significant portion of its assets in affiliated underlying funds that follow factor-based investment strategies. Most of such factor-based underlying funds seek to track the performance of alternatively weighted indices that are constructed using methodologies that rely on equal weighting of underlying component stocks or measure factors such as value, quality, momentum, or volatility, rather than market-cap weighting.

These methodologies are sometimes referred to as Smart Beta. In addition, the Fund may invest in other factor-based underlying funds that are actively managed pursuant to investment strategies that target intuitive investment factors such as value, quality, momentum, or volatility. The Fund is designed for investors who are currently withdrawing, or plan in the near future to begin withdrawing, a substantial portion of their investment. The Fund seeks to provide for retirement outcomes based on quantitatively measured risk. BlackRock employs a multidimensional approach to assess risk for the Fund and to determine the Funds allocation across asset classes. As part of this multidimensional approach, BlackRock aims to quantify risk using proprietary risk measurement tools that, among other things, analyze historical and forward-looking securities market data, including risk, asset class correlations, and expected returns.

In pursuit of its investment objective, the Fund will be broadly diversified across global asset classes, and will generally seek to maintain an asset allocation of approximately 40% in underlying funds that invest in equity and 60% in underlying funds that invest in fixed income, although the allocation may shift over time depending on market conditions. Certain underlying funds may invest in real estate investment trusts (REITs), foreign securities, emerging market securities, below investment-grade bonds and derivative securities or instruments, such as options and futures, the value of which is derived from another security, a commodity, a currency or an index. Although the Fund will generally seek to maintain an asset allocation of approximately 40% in underlying funds that invest in equity and 60% in underlying funds that invest in fixed income, BlackRock may periodically adjust the proportion of equity funds and fixed income funds in the Fund based on an assessment of the current market conditions, the potential contribution of each asset class to the expected risk and return characteristics of the Fund and other factors.

In addition, BlackRock may determine that, in connection with the Funds investment in certain of the factor-based underlying funds, adjustments to the equity or fixed income allocations in excess of such asset allocation target percentages may be appropriate to better align the risk characteristics of the Fund with the glide path. In general, the adjustments will be limited to +/- 10% relative to the target allocations. However, BlackRock may determine that a greater degree of variation is warranted to protect the Fund or achieve its investment objective. Factors such as fund classifications, historical risk and performance, and the relationship to other underlying funds in the Fund are considered when selecting underlying funds. The specific underlying funds selected for the Fund are determined at BlackRocks discretion and may change as deemed appropriate to allow the Fund to meet its investment objective.

See Description of Underlying Funds for a list of the underlying funds, their classification into equity or fixed income funds and a brief description of their investment objectives and primary investment strategies. The allocation to underlying funds that invest in equity may be further diversified by style factors, market capitalization, region (including domestic and international (including emerging market) funds), or other factors. The fixed income allocation may be further diversified by sector (including government, corporate, agency, and other sectors), duration (a calculation of the average life of a bond which measures its price risk), credit quality (including non-investment grade debt or junk bonds), geographic location (including U.S. and foreign-issued securities), or other factors.

The percentage allocation to the various styles of equity and fixed income are determined at the discretion of the investment team and can be changed to reflect the current market environment. Investments in underlying funds will be allocated towards the equity and fixed income percentages based on their classification. The Fund may also seek asset allocation to equity and fixed income by investing in funds that invest in a mix of equity and fixed income instruments (multi-asset funds). Investments in multi-asset funds will be allocated towards the equity and fixed income percentages listed for the glide path based on the multi-asset funds underlying investments in equity and fixed income instruments. Because the Fund is in its most conservative phase, its allocation generally does not become more conservative over time, although its allocation may change to maintain the Funds risk profile.

The Fund may, when consistent with its investment goal, buy or sell options or futures, or enter into total return swaps and foreign currency transactions (collectively, commonly known as derivatives). The Fund may seek to obtain market exposure to the securities in which it primarily invests by entering into a series of purchase and sale contracts or by using other investment techniques (such as reverse repurchase agreements or dollar rolls). The Fund may use derivatives as a substitute for taking a position in an underlying fund and/or as part of a strategy to reduce exposure to certain risks. The Fund may also use derivatives to seek to enhance returns, in which case their use may involve leveraging risk. Derivatives that are used as a substitute for taking a position in an underlying fund, to reduce exposure to risks (other than duration or currency risk) or to seek to enhance returns will increase or decrease the Funds equity or fixed income allocations for purposes of the glide path by the notional amount of such derivatives.

Derivatives that are used to manage duration or hedge currency risk will not be allocated to the Funds equity or fixed income allocations for purposes of the glide path.

C000050762 Costs and Fees

C000050762 costs about $81 per $10,000 invested per year in fund expenses.

• Net expense ratio: 0.81%
• Gross expense ratio: 2.97%
• Portfolio turnover: 82%
• Brokerage commissions: 3.71 bps of average net assets (SEC N-CEN)

C000050762 Cashflows

Over the 12 months to 2020-04, BlackRock LifePath Smart Beta Retirement Fund had net inflows of $26.31M, from monthly SEC N-PORT filings.

C000050762 Debt Constituents

No individual debt constituents are reported in BlackRock LifePath Smart Beta Retirement Fund's latest SEC N-PORT filing.

C000050762 Prospectus and SEC Filings

Official BlackRock LifePath Smart Beta Retirement Fund filings on SEC EDGAR — prospectus, portfolio holdings and annual reports.

• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2020-03-18
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2019-03-19
• Prospectus (485BPOS) — filed 2018-03-20
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2020-06-24
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2020-03-27
• Portfolio holdings (N-PORT) — filed 2019-12-23
• Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2020-01-10
• Annual census (N-CEN) — filed 2019-01-14

Related Funds

Other Target Date / Glide Path Allocation funds tracked on ABC INVEST:

• Vanguard Target Retirement 2035 Fund (VTTHX)
• Vanguard Target Retirement 2045 Fund (VTIVX)
• Vanguard Target Retirement 2040 Fund (VFORX)
• Vanguard Target Retirement 2030 Fund (VTHRX)
• Vanguard Target Retirement 2050 Fund (VFIFX)

Data Sources

ABC INVEST compiles this page from public filings made to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) through EDGAR: portfolio holdings and monthly cashflows from Form N-PORT, expenses and returns from fund prospectuses (Form 485BPOS) and the SEC DERA Risk/Return Summary data sets, annual data from Form N-CEN, and shareholder reports from Form N-CSR.