Fiduciary-based Investment Consulting™ | Blue Prairie Group, LLC.

We are investment fiduciaries and inherently motivated to make our investment consulting process prudent and complete. Blue Prairie Group’s Fiduciary–based Investment Consulting™ process is designed to improve investment outcomes and protect our busy fiduciary clients from unnecessary risk. From creating governance documents and designing investment portfolios, to providing 24 / 7 investment monitoring and storing all key documents and reports in a custom client website, we’ve reengineered the ERISA retirement investment consulting process to insure that our clients–and us–have fulfilled our fiduciary duties.

The Fiduciary–based Investment Consulting Process™

Step 1: Create and maintain governance structures.
A well–defined committee structure is essential for ensuring that proper fiduciary practices are followed. It also ensures that the right people are sitting at the table.
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The investment policy statement (IPS) is a critical document because it defines the process to follow throughout the portfolio development, investment selection and ongoing monitoring process. One cannot talk about investments without also talking about plan costs, so we routinely benchmark total plan costs for our clients.

Step 2: Create and maintain investment portfolios.
BPG follows a well–defined investment philosophy that leads to style pure, low cost and value-added portfolios.
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Our investment analytics group (IAG) is trained to look beyond performance numbers to ask the question, “How did the manager achieve these results?” By focusing on qualitative analysis, BPG analysts are better able to understand each manager’s approach and to recommend managers who are likely to provide similar investment results in the future.

Step 3: Conduct regular committee meetings.
Committee meetings are our opportunity to help you understand your investments’ performance and how your plan stacks up:
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Our custom investment reports, designed for busy fiduciaries, are clear and succinct. Recommendations are highlighted up front and written in plain English. The Blue Prairie Group SmartCard™— the heart and soul of our investment reports — explicitly links the criteria for ongoing investment performance back to the client’s IPS.

It’s color coded for easy use and our analysts’ qualitative analysis adds a critical dimension to the understanding of your investments’ performance. We know that committees are interested in how their plans measure up, so we also provide additional comparative information about plan design and fees. Finally, we routinely conduct fiduciary training to ensure that all committee members share a common understanding of key fiduciary concepts.

Step 4: Provide 24/7 ongoing investment monitoring.
Even though we may meet with a Committee, in person, only 2–4 times a year, our investment monitoring work never stops.
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When there is a major event, we send out a proprietary BPG Fiduciary Alert to all affected clients. Some events, like a manager change, force an automatic posting to BPG’s proprietary Watch List. Our investment analysts, the cornerstone of our fiduciary–based investment consulting process, meet regularly with investment managers, attend conferences and webinars and read and write deeply on the various strategies they cover.

Step 5: Safeguard key documents in a custom Client Fiduciary File Cabinet.
We reengineered the ERISA retirement consulting process because we know that someday, one of our clients will be challenged about an investment decision they made. As fiduciaries, we also know that our best defense is to follow a procedurally prudent process.
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This includes leaving behind a paper trail that details all key plan decisions. For that reason, we create safe and secure custom client web sites for storing important documents like fee studies, investment reports and meeting minutes, thereby allowing the committee to demonstrate fiduciary process as well as preserve institutional memory.