Fundfire - October 18, 2004 - "Start-up Consultant Trades On Transparency"

…Independence and transparency was important to the Montana Board of Investments, which earlier this year launched a search for its first-ever outside consultant. The $9.6 billion system in September hired Independent Fiduciary Services to perform a one-time review of the system's operations. Montana expects its relationship with IFS to end after its review is finished; the system manages most of its assets in-house and has never had an ongoing investment consultant. But the chairman says the board still had some demands. "We wanted to make sure they were completely independent," says board Chairman Dick Anderson. "That was a really big consideration." With some of the firms that responded to the RFP, he says, "their whole thrust was just to sell us something down the road." Anderson says IFS, another independent consultant, did not give that impression, a fact that definitely played a role in the firm winning the job…