Principal Investment Management

East Anglian based independent financial adviser Almary Green has partnered with discretionary fund manager Principal Investment Management and the Skandia platform to offer a managed portfolio service to clients.
The service will offer six model portfolios, invested by Principal Investment Management, covering a range of risk profiles from cautious to adventurous, but which will be based on what Almary Green managing director Carl Lamb describes as "realistic assessment of a client's attitude to risk".

"By this we mean a risk graded assessment that fully covers what the client feels and requires and puts it in the context of the reality of the investment world. It is about how clients actually feel about their investments and making sure they are achievable. So it will be assessing not just how much money the client wishes to make but their attitude to losing money."

This behavioural finance risk assessment will ensure the investment proposition is one that is "more likely" to meet the clients needs rather than one that merely "could" meet them, Lamb added. This will be achieved by taking into account what assets the client has available, what they want to achieve and in what time scale, ensuring those goals and aspirations are achievable in the time frames, identifying how much the client is willing to take risk in attaining those goals, and then selecting the portfolio best suited to them.

Discretionary manager Principal will actively manage the portfolios, investing in high quality diversified funds and creating the client portfolio on the Skandia platform.

"Principal has the proven investment experience and commitment to client service that we require of a partner of Almary Green," said Lamb.

Adrian Jewitt, sales and marketing director of Principal Investment Management, said: "What this will give Almary Green clients is access to a professional discretionary fund management company. In partnering with Almary Green and Skandia, we have looked at where we can create efficiencies by avoiding duplication of effort in the value chain, which means we can deliver discretionary expertise and rigour to these portfolios while accepting clients with a lower value pool of assets."

Ongoing active management will include rebalancing of the portfolios on a quarterly basis.

"If the market changes, at the touch of a button we can remodel the portfolios," said Jewitt. "This can be done systematically across one or more of the model portfolios and so can benefit all clients in those portfolios at the same time."

Clients will receive quarterly factsheet updates alongside regular reviews and progress reports from Almary Green.

Skandia is providing the platform engine that will enable TCF compliant management of the service, including transactions and give clients access to view their portfolios online.

Carl Lamb said: "We chose Skandia because we feel they are technically ahead of the market and so can deliver the best in service to our clients."

Peter Mann, Chief Development Officer at Skandia, said: "This type of service is a great example of the value that can be delivered to investors by combining the power of a financial adviser, a discretionary fund manager and an investment platform. Risk graded managed portfolios delivered cost effectively by utilising technology can result in consistent client outcomes and an investment process that is robust, repeatable and compliant."