Our investment philosophy

Our investment philosophy

By engaging with clients in a holistic way, we’re able to gain a full understanding of your current needs as well as your future objectives. Working in this way means you see the big picture, and we can provide the solutions that are most likely to help you realise your goals.

Investing often forms a part of the solutions we recommend to clients.

So, what do you need to know about our approach to investing?

Our investment proposition

The Stonegate Wealth Management investment proposition has taken many years of work and is something we believe differentiates us from many other advisers and planners. It is run by our own internal Investment Committee, chaired by Steve Hendry. The committee meets once a quarter and receives input from our admin team, compliance advisers and our portfolio management partners, Cormorant Capital Strategies, who provide crucial fund research and oversight.

Our investment strategy

Diversification

First of all, we believe your investment should be fully diversified. Diversification refers to the practice of spreading your money between different asset classes and different kinds of investment product. Doing this means we can help you reduce the risk of your overall investment portfolio underperforming and losing money.

A portfolio that aligns to your goals and risk profile

We don’t use a one-size-fits-all approach to investing. Where we recommend particular investment strategies and products to you, these will be selected based on your personal circumstances, financial goals and objectives. We’ll consider a number of factors, including the services you need, the cost of investing, how much risk you are prepared to accept in an investment product and how much of a drop in its value you could withstand.

We carefully construct investment strategies that are aligned to you, your finances and your life goals.

A blend of active and passive instruments

Our core investment strategy is based on our own model portfolio range, which uses a blend of passive and active instruments.

What do we mean by “active” and “passive” investing?

Active investing starts by assessing each individual investment’s worth and then by selecting the investments that are most attractive. The goal of an active fund manager is usually to “beat the market” or outperform certain standard benchmarks.

Passive investing, by contrast, does not seek to “beat the market” but to match its overall performance. A passive fund manager, therefore, will seek to own all the stocks in a given market index, in the proportion they are held in that index.

We don’t form an opinion on which is best; only which is best for you.

Asset allocation

Our portfolios are aligned to an asset allocation model. Asset allocation takes your investment time horizon into account and is the process of dividing your investment between different assets, such as cash, bonds, shares, and property. This practice helps to spread risk through diversification.

Other things you may wish to know about our investment advice

We offer independent investment advice. This means that we consider a wide range of financial strategies and products. We are constantly reviewing the market to ensure that the services and products we offer are appropriate for our clients.

Where appropriate, we may use an investment platform to administer your investments.

We provide advice on a variety of investments and have access to solutions that meet the needs of all different clients. However, in the majority of instances, our core recommended solutions are Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs), collective investments, and retirement solutions.

Please note

We can advise on specialist investment solutions where appropriate to your circumstances, such as multi-asset funds, Venture Capital Trusts (VCT) and Enterprise Investment Schemes (EIS).

Please note that we do not provide advice in relation to directly held individual shares, options, futures and other derivative contracts. We believe they are unlikely to be suitable for most of our clients. If you need individual advice, we recommend you refer to a stockbroker.

You should be aware that investments carry varying degrees of risk and as their underlying value can fall as well as rise, you may not get back the full amount invested.