Blue Prairie Group Launches Redesigned Fiduciary-based Investment Consulting Report

Feb. 5, 2010 - PRLog -- Blue Prairie Group, a leading fee-based retirement and investment consulting firm headquartered in Chicago, is launching its proprietary Fiduciary-based Investment Consulting™ report. This report is the culmination of over a year of internal work  including significant feedback from clients. The redesigned report is intended to define a new standard for ERISA investment consulting.

Sara Braz, the Blue Prairie Group consultant who served as the internal project manager said,  “We see this report as much more than just an aesthetic redesign. For us, it represents a complete retooling of the behind-the-scenes work flow we use to generate our proprietary investment reports for our busy plan fiduciary clients. With the redesign, our investment analysts now have even more time for research, talking to investment managers and conducting in-depth analysis of potential problem areas for our clients. Having sat in scores of meetings with plan fiduciaries, I know our clients want actionable information presented to them in a concise, easy-to-read format. I’m delighted to say that this report does that.”  

Not everything in the report is changing, however. Gary Silverman, Blue Prairie Group’s Chief Investment Officer, worked closely with the firm's investment analysts and the Internal Investment Committee in modifying the underlying methodology of linking current investment performance to each client’s investment policy statement (IPS.) According to Gary, “One of the main reasons that clients hire us is that we give them clear, actionable information in plain English. As co-fiduciaries, we have real skin in the game to make sure that we deliver high quality information in a way that clearly supports ERISA’s procedural prudence standard."

The proprietary Blue Prairie Group Smartcard™, the heart and soul of the new report, combines quantitative data and qualitative analysis to quickly give plan fiduciaries a sense of how their investments are doing relative to the monitoring benchmarks established in their investment policy statement. In addition to actively managed funds, the Smartcard™ analyzes target date funds and passively managed investments using similar criteria. The data is color coded in an easy-to-understand, single-page format so that plan fiduciaries know immediately if further action is required.

Tess Malone, Blue Prairie Group’s Institutional Retirement and Investment practice leader, says “Based on our review of the competitive landscape, most plan sponsors lack good, actionable information related to the ERISA investment monitoring process. This report redesign is a continuation of BPG’s pioneering work in taking complicated, abstract investment information and presenting it to plan fiduciaries in a concise and easy-to-understand way. Our recommendations are located up front and are written in plain English because we know that our busy fiduciary clients hire us to help them make informed decisions that can withstand outside scrutiny.”

In addition to investment Information, the report also features client-specific information on plan fees and plan design so that busy plan fiduciaries can better understand how their plan stacks up against national normative data. It also offers expanded sections devoted to stable value analysis, money market and target date funds.

The newly redesigned report is one of the cornerstones of Blue Prairie Group’s proprietary, 5-step Fiduciary-based Investment Consulting Process™ designed to improve investment outcomes and protect busy ERISA plan fiduciaries from unnecessary risk.

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Blue Prairie Group (BPG) is one of the fastest-growing retirement, investment and human resource consulting firms in the country. We are transforming the ERISA retirement industry with our proprietary Fiduciary-Based Investment Consulting Process™. BPG recognizes that how investment decisions are made is as important the actual decision itself. BPG advocates low cost investments, full fee transparency, and offers a broad, team-based service model for both institutions and individuals. For more information, please go to www.blueprairiegroup.com.