Investments & Portfolio Management Service

It is widely accepted that to reduce investment risk needs a broad spread of investments around the world.

One country or a small group of similar economies may produce spectacular performance in the shorter term but eventually prices become excessive and either fall or not rise as investors switch to other countries offering better value.

It is probable that the largest shares in a bull run cannot go on for ever and it is nearly impossible to tell - in advance - when the turning point will be reached.

Luckily not all economies or even sectors of an economy rise and fall in unison so judicious switching can create the opportunity for continually rising profits.

Occasionally a global event takes place causing all stock markets to fall. Such events are infrequent and the use of derivatives can mitigate the effects of such a fall.

Needs and expectations differ from one client to another. Some of the more common differences include:

1. Attitude to investment risk

1. Amount of personal involvement

1. Future capital requirements including date of eventual wind-up of the portfolio (if known)

1. Income requirements

Regent have therefore developed various investment programmes to suit different client needs.

OUR RESEARCH PROCESS

Our investment advice is determined by our investment committee that considers a whole range of market and economic research from stockbrokers, insurance companies and other financial institutions. From this research we consider the outlook for the various investment markets and, using a top down approach adjust our preferred allocation policies.

Our investment philosophy is, essentially, to match the trends of various investment markets to a clients investment objectives and then to “add value” by the recommendation of the better performing funds through which exposure to those markets is achieved.

Whereas a managed fund from an insurance company will maintain a spread of investments throughout the world we will tend to dismiss completely those areas which are out of favour and have a much greater emphasis on those areas which are doing well.

In the unlikely event that we felt that no area for investment was attractive we would might recommend that you placed your entire portfolio temporarily on deposit – something that a managed fund would never do.

Firstly we monitor the economic cycles and developments of key economic groups around the world – US, UK, Europe, Japan, South East Asia and other Emerging Markets.

We then track the movement of the respective stock markets in order to optimise the timing of any switch.

We select the mutual funds to gain exposure to the selected stockmarkets by virtue of their historic returns (analysed on both an overall and a discrete year basis).

As past performance data can be misleading – the leading fund may well have snatched the top slot by fortuitous timing or taking a “big bet” so we include either or both the Standard & Poors Fund Research or Micropal ratings to refine the selection process.

This rating process considers in-house methodology, risk control systems and the length of time that the key fund manager has been in situ. From the resulting shortlist we can select funds that match with our clients requirements e.g. income or capital growth, future capital needs, risk / reward attitude and income tax status.