“As I stated in my proposition to charities when I set up my first charity advisory business, Jewson Services to Charities in 1993, I believe that charities need access to the best external advice in order to minimise expenditure and maximise voluntary and investment income, and to ensure that they are complying with tougher and more extensive charity laws and regulations. If anything has changed since then, the charity investment world has become ever more complex and requires more specialist knowledge.”
Edward Jewson, founder, who has been at the forefront of consulting to charities over the past three decades.
Focus on clients
Not-for-profit and public sectors represent just over 6% of total UK institutional asset owners, making them not always a priority of the investment and consultancy industry. We choose to focus on these sectors as we believe that genuine understanding of the specific needs of each individual client is the cornerstone of successful consultancy.
According to the FCA study, “larger investment consultants are not seen as flexible in meeting client needs and tend to provide similar advice across their client base”. We pride ourselves that our advice is always made specifically to the needs of each one of our clients, considering their particular investment requirements and dynamics of the trustee board.
We work together with our clients to provide them with timely solutions and proactive recommendations.
Challenging the status quo
We are not shy in expressing an opinion thereby challenging the status quo. We rely on our extensive experience and research capabilities to find most practical and cost-effective solutions for our clients.
Our investment research is powered by the database and tools of Morningstar and Sustainalytics, leading providers of independent investment and ESG research.
Technological advances have made information widely available and we see our added value in applying our framework and skills to disseminate the data for our clients’ particular needs.
Business integrity and compliance
We offer completely impartial advice, as we are not affiliated to any fund management group and therefore do not have any conflicts of interest between consultancy and investment management services.
While trustee boards engage investment consultants on a regular basis to assist with their investment strategies or manager evaluation, FCA regulation leaves a large portion of strategic advice outside its scope. This leads to a substantial divergence in the services offered, as well as the level of the resource and depth of advice that consultants provide and their fees.
We made it our purpose to comply with the strictest regulatory requirements to protect our clients and be able to provide FCA regulated investment advice when needed. We engage Thornbridge Investment Management, a regulatory hosting provider, which enables us to carry out regulated activities under their compliance umbrella and ensure adherence to all regulatory and compliance requirements.
Commitment to sustainability
We take a comprehensive approach to sustainable investments and assist our clients in finding a solution which addresses their particular needs and is both practical and robust. We are signatories to UN PRI and members of UKSIF.
We are strong believers in the benefits of fully incorporating ESG into the investment process, which we have found significant academic evidence to support. We think it is perfectly possible to construct portfolios which adhere to sustainability criteria without sacrificing returns.
We are mindful that the public pressure around a number of ESG issues is only gaining momentum. Investment portfolios are an "easy target" for journalists who try to escalate this issue, creating a significant reputational risk. We believe it is important for not-for-profit organisations to get ahead of the curve to avoid reputational damage.
Cost effectiveness
We operate a very lean and agile business model to deliver our services at very competitive rates. Our team is enabled by sufficient infrastructure and resources to retain full focus on our clients and not compromise on the depth and thoroughness of our work. Due to our efficient business model we are able to be flexible and adapt to the particular needs and processes of our clients.
We strive to provide excellent value for money. Our fees are not tied to the size of our clients’ investment portfolios but are based on project complexity. We aim to work on a fixed rate basis where possible, so that our clients can be confident that we do not become conflicted by providing them with overly complex solutions.