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 Teaming up with the porfolio management professionalsSuccessful portfolio direction depends to a large extent on the endowment of the director looking after your investing. Here we reveal what the top offshore investment managers can do for your wealthiness aims and objectives. Ashburton’s bespoke portfolio service is a personal, tailored investing solution designed to meet a client’s person requirements. This is achieved by creating a portfolio that suits an investor’s person needs, mental attitude to risk and any personal preferences. If investors want to generate a particular level of income, limit specific asset class exposures, or even adopt an ethical approach to their plus, this can also be accommodated. Our dedicated investment team will work personally with each client to provide advice, interpret their person needs, understand investment objectives, their mental attitude to risk and agree on mention points for public presentation measurement. Our aim is to provide real returns that can be spent, bearing in mind that cash sedimentation will ever provide positive returns. We appreciate that investors like to make money and, in most cases, hate losing money even more! Once constructed, the portfolio is monitored actively and dynamically whilst producing client study on a habitue quarterly basis, but without formality at any time. Alteration in scheme and/or economic circumstances are also communicated personally through the highest levels of service. We invest in what makes sense instead than the contents of a benchmark or the latest fad. When the marketplace outlook is favourable, we will look for profitable opportunities to deed for our clients. However, when status are poor, we seek to protect capital as we see no ground to remain static in falling markets, blinded by the headlights when marketplace conditions deteriorate. If investors want to make positive real returns, they must take some grade of risk. What they must not do is take unnecessary risks. Maximising returns with the minimal amount of risk is one of the cornerstones of the Ashburton investment philosophy. The typical asset allocation includes international equities, international bonds, exchange traded funds, funds of hedge funds, cash instruments and deposits. The minimum investment is £1million (or currency equivalent) and can be constructed from direct holdings or using a funded solution to match certain individual tax requirements. Our annual management fees are typically 0.90% or less, dependent upon size and any third-party custodial (0.045% p.a.) and transactional costs. Alun Evans Investment Director, Rensburg Sheppards It is now over 25 years since members of the Rensburg Sheppards International Team first visited the Middle East to meet with expatriate clients. Today, members of the team regularly travel all over the world to help our expatriate clients plan and manage their assets, and to ensure that their investments are well looked after. Based in London, the International Team of Rensburg Sheppards Investment Management manages clients who live or work overseas. Over half of clients looked after by the team are private individuals, with the balance equally divided between trusts and investment holding companies. As you can imagine, almost all these clients are looked after on a discretionary basis out of necessity. It would be difficult to do otherwise due to time zones, different weekends and holidays, and geographic constraints. Therefore, having agreed a strategy, the Team manages the offshore portfolios in line with the clients’ requirement, which cover a wide variety of investment aims. The discretionary service we offer is suitable for investors who have sufficient funds to invest to diversify their portfolio across a range of individual securities, as well as collectives. This is a bespoke service for which we charge an annual flat fee based on the value of the portfolio -– 1.5% on the first £650,000 and reducing thereafter – with no commission on stock sales or purchases. We recommend a minimum investment of £250,000, or its equivalent in an alternative currency. International and expatriate clients can also use Rensburg Sheppards’ International Fund Service, a managed service which makes use of collective investments only, instead of individual stocks and shares. It is suitable for investors who do not have sufficient funds to achieve an acceptable spread of risk in individual securities, or for larger investors who prefer the simplicity yet diversity of collective investments. The minimum investment into the service is £30,000, for which a management fee of 1% per annum is charged, based on the value of the portfolio. Probably the most significant difference between the International Team and many of their competitors is the different base currencies of the client portfolios. Whereas the base currency of a UK client is sterling, which is reflected in the geographic spread and asset allocation within the portfolio, nearly half the clients managed by the International Team have little or no interest in the pound. Their base currency may be the dollar or the euro, which is again reflected in the geographic spread of their portfolios. For example, a ‘dollar thinker’ may have only five per cent exposure to the UK in a portfolio, as compared to, say, 70% for a ‘sterling thinker’s’ portfolio. Therefore, we structure portfolios not only to take into account a client’s investment aim and attitude to risk, but also their particular currency requirement. To help keep our clients informed about their investments, they can view their portfolio at any time by our Internet Valuation Service. We also have the performance of our portfolios externally verified, which can be a useful tool for a client when chasing a portfolio manager, or gauging ongoing performance. With over 100 years’ experience between us addressing the needs of expatriates, we believe we are well placed to satisfy their requirements. Ed Upsdell Managing Director, Discretionary Investment Management, Royal Bank of Canada (Channel Islands) One of the key differentials that distinguishes the private client investment industry from its institutional counterpart, is the direct access private clients have to their portfolio manager. The trade- off with this access, however, is that the client relies on the talents of one, or maybe a couple of, individuals to manage their assets across a broad range of asset classes and geographies. RBC Wealth Management is committed to personal relationships but also believes that no one person or company can be an expert in all markets at all times and so, five years ago, introduced an Open Architecture approach to portfolio management called Global Investment Solutions (GIS). To some, Open Architecture means using a Fund of Funds and spreading assets across 50–60 different managers, but the GIS philosophy is to know a fewer number of managers much more intimately. World class managers are selected and monitored via a rigorous qualitative process in each of the major asset classes, including alternative investments, and we “manage the managers” to ensure an optimal portfolio blend for our clients. GIS is a service not a product and, as such, clients retain direct access to their RBC Portfolio Manager, who fully understands their needs and requirements. Our proprietary client discovery tools will ascertain the client’s objectives and risk tolerance and suggest an idealised asset allocation that is the starting point for further discussion. Once agreed, the Portfolio Manager will use this information to construct the client’s portfolio using the various building blocks managed by our external advisors. This methodology produces a diversified and yet focused portfolio that allows RBC to deliver two key requirements to the client: excellent service and solid performance. The strength of the offering lies in its adaptability. Depending upon portfolio size and tax requirements, portfolios can be constructed from either Funds or segregated models and offered in multiple currencies and the proposition is offered both onshore and offshore. In all cases, RBC retains custody and control of the assets allowing for consolidated performance reporting. Normally, for private clients, access to these world class managers and their institutional approach to money management would either be unobtainable or very expensive. The RBC Discretionary Investment Management solution is able to provide this access whilst retaining the benefits of a direct client relationship – all at a fair cost. The very best of both worlds. Chris Stead Head of Discretionary Portfolio Management, Standard Bank In today’s financial world the range, scope and complexity of available investment solutions is increasing rapidly. Additionally, clients themselves are quickly becoming far more knowledgeable in their search of suitable investment solutions. As such, they require, demand even, higher standards of proactive service and flexibility from their asset managers and investment advisors. In recognition of this, our Jersey-based Private Client Asset Management team, which comprises 13 portfolio managers and includes five directors with longstanding experience in managing assets for an international base of private and intermediary clients, offers an extremely personal, bespoke and client focused service. At the heart of their approach is the steadfast understanding that asset allocation is the dominant driver of investment returns. As such, the team place a great deal of emphasis on achieving an asset allocation policy/strategy which best suits a client’s risk profile and investment objective, whether it be capital preservation, provision of income, capital growth or a mixture of all three. To ensure that the wide variety of client investment objectives are met, every client is allocated a lead Portfolio Manager who has in-depth experience in understanding client’s investment goals and in delivering investment strategies that meet their individual requirements. These range from Absolute Return, Global Income and Global Conservative at the lower end of the risk spectrum to Global Balanced, Global Growth and Global Equity towards the higher end. Continuity of manager and close communication are also viewed as being vital in developing long-term client relationships and are key components to the delivery of successful bespoke wealth management solutions. Our core process With an investment philosophy that “No one investment manager performs well in all markets or asset types”, a multi-manager ‘best of breed’ approach is adopted towards both equity and hedge fund investment in order to deliver superior long-term risk adjusted returns. The Asset Management team manages the highly rated Standard Bank Strategist Multi-Manager Fund range that includes the Global Equity and Alternative Strategies fund classes. These ‘best of breed’ funds are open to investors with a minimum of £25,000 and are utilised, where appropriate, in managed portfolios which attract a minimum annual fee of £2,500. Last, but not least, the team and the bespoke range of portfolio services are supported by sophisticated administration systems, which include the provision of Portfolio Online, an internet service that enables the modern and increasingly global client to stay in touch with financial developments. FAST FACTS Ashburton 44150 Rensburg Sheppards 44152 Royal Bank of Canada (CI) 44153 Standard Bank 44154 More Expatriate Finance News |