Looking after your investments is always our top priority, but it doesn’t happen without lots of hard work and effort behind the scenes! One of our expert financial planners, Nick Evans, explains the role our Investment Committee plays in enabling us to stay ahead of the curve on behalf of all our clients:
“Every two months, I chair our internal Investment Committee meeting with all our advisers and technical team to discuss and review our centralised investment proposition for existing and prospective clients. It’s a great chance to review our company philosophy to ensure any strategy we implement meets our non-negotiable requirements; cost, past performance, diversification and financial strength.
Something we really pride ourselves on is our research and planning; our technical team carry out extensive research beforehand to provide insight into other options available on the market and identify any new funds that could provide an alternative to our existing funds.
Each meeting begins with an open discussion on financial news, recent events, a look to potential future events and where we see the impact of these in individual asset classes like company shares (equities), fixed interest securities (GILTS, Treasuries, and corporate bonds), and alternative strategies (commodities, currency, property and infrastructure).
A great recent example of this is how rising inflation and interest rates as a result of the pandemic will affect fixed interest security valuations over the short, medium and long term.
We also take time to examine how these events might have an impact on particular sectors and regions. These discussions, alongside our specialist research software allow us to review the exposure to each asset class, region and industry sector in our portfolios and, most importantly, enables us to make a judgement on whether our portfolios need to be adjusted.
We provide a tailored service for our clients and so have a number of portfolio options depending on a client’s attitude to investment risk, preferences and term of investment. Our Investment Committee provides the chance for each option to be carefully analysed to assess whether it’s still meeting its original objectives and is performing as expected.
Whilst reviewing the historic performance is important, we also have to consider the future and whether a fund is built to not only provide returns in good market conditions but can withstand adverse market conditions. So, as well as a performance analysis, we review the allocation to each asset class, each region and each industry sector.
It is vitally important that existing portfolios continue to meet the objectives we set out to achieve for our clients. If they are not achieving these objectives, we must be clear on the reasons why and make important changes, but only when necessary. We believe in long term investment strategies and avoid making regular changes to portfolios as this can prove detrimental to long term returns. We strongly believe in ‘time in the market’, and not ‘timing the market’ and I feel this long-term approach is a big reason why so many of our clients continue to trust us after so many years.”
Top Rated Financial Advisors
