John Hancock has filed to distribute its popular asset-allocation Lifestyle Funds in the retail channel, according to spokeswoman Liz Kennedy.

The funds are currently available through John Hancock 401(k)s and annuities, but will likely be available in the fall, says Kennedy.

The move would expand the distribution of the portfolios, which currently have $24 billion in assets.

The Lifestyle funds are a mix of risk-targeted lifecycle funds and target-date funds, according to spokeswoman Melissa Simon.

The portfolios include JH Lifestyle Aggressive, JH Lifestyle Growth, JH Lifestyle Balanced, JH Lifestyle Moderate and the JH Lifestyle Conservative funds.

And according to a recent survey by John Hancock, the move comes at a time when 401(k) investors in Hancock's Lifestyle funds have outperformed their non-Lifestyle counterparts for the last four years.

In a survey of 120,048 401(k) participants, John Hancock found that Lifestyle Funds investors, on average, outperformed all other participants from 2000 to 2004. By risk profile, non-Lifestyle Funds participants would have had 17.46 percent higher balances at the end of the period if they had invested in Lifestyle Funds.

That's because on average, the Lifestyle participant earned 315 to 424 basis points more from 2000 to 2004. For instance, conservative Lifestyle Funds investors earned 5.3 percent in that time period, compared to all other investors' return of 1.9 percent. 

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