Investing

We help our clients to construct investment portfolios across a broad range of asset classes in order to achieve their financial goals. Each client portfolio is tailored based on their individual needs and preferences.

All of our investment recommendations are made on the basis of rigorous analysis using a combination of external sources, feedback from our industry networks and our own commercial expertise.

This page discusses:

1. Asset classes covered by our Investing service
2. Our direct share portfolio strategies
3. How we choose external investment managers
4. Where we find and validate investing opportunities 

We offer a range of investment vehicles across the financial asset classes, including:

• Australian Shares: Direct portfolios, sector index funds and boutique specialist fund managers
• International Shares: Broad market index funds, sector index funds, boutique specialist fund managers
• Property and Infrastructure: Listed equities and investment trusts, specialist unlisted property trusts and mortgage funds, and fractional property investment
• Alternatives: Boutique specialist fund managers
• Debt and Fixed Interest: Direct portfolios of debt and hybrid securities, boutique specialist fund managers
• Cash: High interest savings accounts and term deposits

We construct direct share portfolios for clients across four strategies:

We use traditional and proven ‘value investment’ criteria to identify companies that are undervalued relative to their intrinsic value and the overall market. 

Firstly, in order to focus our search for undervalued companies, we identify industry sectors that are out of favour with investors due to short-term or temporary factors and set a target portfolio allocation for that sector.

We then research the target sector to identify a sub-set of companies that offer the best overall risk/return trade-off.  We generally find that a combination of large, medium and small companies provides the best overall exposure to a sector.

Once fully established, a client’s direct portfolio will be comprised of 20 to 30 stocks across 5 to 6 sectors.  All of our exposures to sectors and individual stocks are managed within strict target allocations and periodically rebalanced in accordance with market movements.

We construct portfolios using boutique specialist managers with complementary investment styles to provide the opportunity for outperformance, as well as index funds to provide low cost exposure to specific markets and sectors.

We only recommend managers with proven expertise in a particular sector or investment style, and select managers according to a comprehensive set of evaluation criteria.

• Sound but adaptable investment philosophy
• Clear and consistent investment process
• Experienced management with breadth of expertise
• Investment managers co-invested in the fund
• Transparent and honest in reporting of holdings and performance
• Track record of out-performance against selected benchmark
• Clear, fair and reasonable fee structure
• External ratings, primarily Morningstar
• Product structure and features

We review a wide range of information sources to identify compelling investment opportunities, and then conduct our own comprehensive analysis to ensure alignment with our strategy objectives and client financial goals.

We track broker and analyst reports, monitor investor behaviour, and access research, data and market commentary from leading sources such as the Morningstar Advisor Research Centre. 

We also seek feedback on investment opportunities from our industry networks. In some instances, we have established direct lines of communication with senior executives from our portfolio strategy companies.