Fiduciary Governance Training

FACS™

Comprehensive Fiduciary Examination

Investment Analysis

Our tools and techniques of pension fund management have been refined after 20+ years of experience. There is much to be gained by taking the lessons of the pension world and applying them to the defined contribution world.

Senior staff members of Denali FM have over 20 years of institutional investment experience. Our experience in building, maintaining and monitoring the investment menu of a qualified retirement plan has led us to develop the fiduciary governance and investment monitoring programs that have created national visibility for our firm.

• The Prudent Investor Rule (PIR), one of ERISAs cardinal principles, is the most challenging element of responsibility for a defined contribution fiduciary to absorb. Many fiduciaries confuse it with the less demanding standard historically known as the Prudent Man Rule. The Prudent Man Rule compels the use of prudence (as an element of ones character) to guide a fiduciarys decision-making. The PIR compels the use of such character traits AND requires the fiduciary to have or hire the technical knowledge of someone who is well versed in the institutional management of long-term trust assets.
• There is a tendency to believe that because the fiduciaries have experience as personal (retail) investors they therefore know enough to serve in a fiduciary capacity to a retirement plan.
• In general, plan vendors are under no legal obligation to put the interests of your plan participants above their own interests. Their business model is driven by placing assets under investment management.
  It is unusual for any mutual fund company in the industry to offer more than three materially different outstanding mutual funds at any one point in time. Consequently, an investment menu dominated by a single investment manager does not offer the same value (diversification of thought process) to the investor as does a best-of-breed menu design.
• Many ERISA counsel who Plan Sponsors look to for guidance in fiduciary matters are not well trained in the institutional management of long-term trust assets

The Denali FM Performance Landscape
The Denali FM Performance Landscape allows the fiduciary to examine trends in relative investment performance on a single page. Performance Landscape is a proprietary performance monitoring method developed by Denali FM. We measure performance by comparing the quartile representation of a particular fund to other funds within the same Morningstar Category classification. We then illustrate performance based on a 1, 3, 5 and 10-year time frame (if applicable) in which the period examined rolls over quarter by quarter. When seeking to make a qualitative assessment, this approach is more rigorous and intellectually honest than the approach of taking a performance snapshot on the last day of the month.

Click here to download a PDF of a Performance Landscape

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