Investment Advisory Services
Depending on our clients’ needs, we can do as little or as much as required, from becoming a single point of contact for trustees on all matters regarding investments to working alongside sophisticated investment committees providing them with ad hoc research.
Investment policy, strategy and asset allocation
We firmly believe that every charity, endowment or foundation is unique and that the trustees need to “own” their investment policy, strategy and asset allocation. This will ensure trustees have sufficient confidence to navigate market cycles.
As investment consultants, our role is to help our clients define their objectives, on their own terms, and then translate them into investment parameters and defined risk profile and investment objectives, from which will follow strategic asset allocation and benchmarks.
Evaluation of investment management arrangements
We find that reviewing fund managers is one of the most common and regular challenges that trustees face in respect to their investment portfolios. We see peer-based reviews that are common in the industry as very time consuming and not particularly efficient in addressing the particular issues of each organisation. We prepare comprehensive review reports, providing our clients with due-diligence to assist in deciding whether to maintain the status-quo or inform requirements for manager selection where a change is needed.
Manager selection and fee negotiation
We assist our clients with manager and fund selection to implement their investment strategies, ranging from appointing a single multi-asset manager to a comprehensive bespoke portfolio of specialist funds. In the latter case, we also assist our clients with optimising their portfolio administration and arrangements to achieve easily manageable and cost-effective solutions.
Given extensive experience of our team in the UK investment sector and knowledge of the market, we have strong relationships with most of the major charity managers and a good awareness of leading managers in a range of other categories and keep track of them.
We use a third-party database, provided by the Morningstar Direct platform, which serves as an initial screening tool for our manager research process. We focus our own resources on qualitative analysis and keep our research bespoke to the specific needs of our clients’ investment portfolios.
We also have successful experience negotiating fees on behalf of our clients.
Ongoing and ad-hoc consultancy services
We assist our clients who choose an ongoing relationship with all matters regarding their investments, becoming the first point of reference for the trustees. We work alongside our clients on their investment committees, helping to set meeting agendas and ensuring effective implementation, managing their relationships with fund managers on their behalves and ensuring seamless and efficient investment management arrangements. We provide consolidated reporting and portfolio monitoring on a quarterly or annual basis.
We also can provide ad-hoc services and advice on a broad range of investment matters, such as collateralising investment portfolios, providing research on a specific asset class or groups of managers or fee re-negotiation.