ST. LOUIS, Feb. 20, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight filed an ERISA class action Complaint today in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri that alleges retirement plan mismanagement by Stifel Financial, Corp. and other fiduciaries of the Stifel Financial Profit Sharing 401(k) Plan.
According to the allegations in the Complaint, Stifel failed to remove two funds from its Plan – the American Century Large Cap Growth Fund and the Artisan Mid-cap Growth Fund – even after those two funds suffered from poor investment performance for over a decade.
The Complaint alleges that during the last six-years, the American Century Fund lagged its benchmark, the Russell 1000 Growth Index, by over 30 percentage points (192% versus 131%) as well as comparable large cap growth funds. In the six-years prior to that, the American Century Fund lagged the Russell 1000 Growth Index by 6.5 percentage points (113% versus 106.5%). Since the American Fund’s inception in 2001, it has underperformed the Russell 1000 Growth Index by 256 percentage points (821% versus 565%), or about 1.41% per year on average.
Since its introduction to the Plan in 2014, the Artisan Fund has underperformed its benchmark, the Russell Mid-Cap Growth Index, by 42 percentage points (217% versus 259%) as well as comparable mid-cap growth funds. In the six-year period from 2014-2020, the Artisan Fund underperformed the Russell Mid-Cap Growth Index by about 8.5 percentage points (73.5% versus 82%). From March 1, 2020, through January 31, 2026, the Artisan Fund again underperformed the Russell Mid-Cap Growth by 14.4 percentage points or about 1.4% each year on average.
Faced with this type of persistent, long-term poor performance, the Complaint asserts that Stifel should have removed both Funds years ago. Instead, Stifel has kept them in the Plan costing Stifel employees and retirees millions in retirement savings, the Complaint alleges.
Plan participants have invested nearly $160,000,000 in the Plan - or about 7% of the Plan’s assets - in the American Century Fund, and over $73,000,000 in the Plan - or about 3% -in the Artisan Fund. Through these actions, Stifel and the Plans’ fiduciaries breached ERISA’s fiduciary duties of prudence.
Combined, the poor investment performance of the American Century and Artisan Funds has cost the Plan and its participants up to $134,000,000 in retirement savings since March 1, 2020.
The named plaintiff filed this case on behalf of the Stifel Plan, which has approximately 10,000 participants and beneficiaries and over $2 billion in assets. Named as Defendants are Stifel Financial Corp., the Plan’s 401(k) Investment Committee, and other Plan fiduciaries.
“Annual underperformance of this magnitude – 1% and more - can torpedo a participant’s retirement savings by costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost returns over their careers. Cases like this are an important tool for protecting the hard-earned retirement savings of employees,” said Charles Field, Co-Chair of the firm’s Financial Mismanagement and ERISA Litigation Practice Group and counsel for Plaintiff and the proposed class.
Sharon Kim, a Partner at the Firm and counsel for the proposed class, added, “ERISA fiduciaries are bound by the highest duties known to law. They are obligated to monitor continuously and remove imprudent investment options. Where breaches occur, the remedy provided by ERISA must be enforced to make up for the losses employees have been forced to bear.”
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight has filed the Stifel ERISA Complaint on the heels of several significant ERISA class settlements in 2024 and 2025. In 2025, the firm obtained final approval of a record $69 million settlement in its multi-year class action against UnitedHealth Group. In 2024, Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, together with co-counsel, also obtained final approval of a $61 million settlement in a long-running ERISA class action against General Electric. The UnitedHealth and GE settlements were among the most significant ERISA settlements in recent years. They were also among the highest value settlements ever in cases involving allegedly poor-performing plan investments.
About Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight
Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight is a public interest and civil rights law firm with offices in New York, Washington, DC, San Francisco, Palo Alto, Nashville, and San Diego. The firm focuses on executive representation, wrongful termination, employment discrimination, sexual harassment, retaliation, wage theft and overtime violations, whistleblower and qui tam, sexual violence, Title IX violations and victims’ rights, financial mismanagement and ERISA litigation, and Asian American litigation and finance matters. Our lawyers have recovered over $5 billion for our clients through many verdicts and settlements.
In 2024, Forbes named Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight Chairman and Co-Founder David Sanford to its inaugural list of America’s Top 200 Lawyers. The National Law Journal has selected Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight as Civil Rights Firm of the Year, and it has recognized the firm as both Employment Rights Firm of the Year and Human Rights Firm of the Year. Benchmark Litigation has named the firm Labor & Employment Firm of the Year, and Law360 has recognized the firm as Employment Practice Group of the Year.
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