Prudent Investor Advisors (PIA) is the new investment advisor for the
MFDA Master Escrow Plan®
(MEP™) and replaces Merrill Lynch. Last year, the MFDA Board announced
that Merrill Lynch had decided to no longer participate in certain lines
of business including the investment management of prepaid funeral
funds. MFDA issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) to find a new investment
manager that would enhance the MFDA MEP™ program and up-grade the
investment services offered to Members. After a long and exhaustive
nationwide search, PIA was selected as the investment manager of the
MEP™ for a number of reasons including its expertise in understanding
the challenges that face Members in making investment decisions for
prepaid funds, its ability to provide Members with a unique investment
solution to meet those challenges as well as its credentials and
experience as a fiduciary investment advisor.
The principals at
PIA, W. Scott Simon, Gary K. Allen and Jeffrey B. Coontz, are
nationally-recognized experts who bring a robust fiduciary
process to the MFDA MEP™. Scott Simon is an attorney and author of
The Prudent Investor Act: A Guide to Understanding. Scott quite
literally “wrote the book” on interpreting the Uniform Prudent Investor
Act (UPIA). A version of the UPIA is the Michigan Prudent Investor Rule
which governs the trustees of the MFDA’s MEP™. Scott has written a
monthly column for Morningstar on fiduciary investment issues called
Fiduciary Focus since 2003 and is the recipient of the 2012 Tamar
Frankel Fiduciary of the Year Award.