Investment Management

Discretionary investment management

We recognise that many people do not have the time or desire to manage their own investments and wish to entrust us with the day-to-day decision making. A discretionary investment management service allows you to delegate to your investment manager, enabling us to make changes within your portfolio without having to contact you first, in line with your agreed investment strategy.

Execution only

Here no advice is given, with your investment manager executing trades on your behalf. As a result, this is generally only available to experienced investors or may be used where a client has a cherished holding which otherwise might distort the strategy of your discretionary account. This may be linked to a discretionary account as a ‘satellite’.

Minimum Size

As part of our bespoke offering we do not have any specific minimum size for accounts, but we have a guideline of £200,000. However where there are secondary accounts such as children, grandchildren, trusts and pensions we are happy for the accounts to be far smaller and the minimum guideline is waived including JISAs (Junior ISAs).

Linking accounts: To provide the benefits of economies of scale to family groups where there may be multiple accounts, we run a fee linking service so that each family is treated as one large account with pro-rata fees, delivering a benefit of lower management charges at different tiers.

Charges

Discretionary accounts: for all our discretionary accounts we offer a ‘fee only’ service with no dealing commission and tiered bands as the funds under management increase.

Execution only: where we have satellite ‘execution only’ accounts we do not charge any management fee as no advice is being given. Instead, there is a minimum annual charge to cover custody and commission charged whenever dealing takes place.

Three ways to deliver world class investment management for clients

Research

Access to industry leading research across all the major asset classes. Raymond James has over 80 analysts covering 1,300 companies globally. This is supported by external research from multiple houses including HSBC, JP Morgan, Cannacord, Numis and many others. Fund research is provided directly as well as via independent fund research houses and we meet fund managers directly on a weekly basis.

Systems

Raymond James has invested heavily in systems and I.T. to offer a cutting edge service. Clients can access portfolios directly 24/7 through Client AccessTM* which provides updated price information daily (valued at previous days close). Additionally, client reports are produced quarterly with a tax pack available at year-end through CGIX – an external HMRC recognised tax pack producer. Reports can also be run at any time on an ad-hoc basis and will form the basis of any meeting – showing ongoing and historic performance against agreed benchmarks.

Compliance

To ensure we are following your mandate correctly and are implementing the correct level of risk, in the first instance we will use risk tools such as Finametrica to ensure that a quantitative assessment of your instruction matches a more qualitative approach. Professional indemnity cover is in place and we are monitored by Compliance to ensure we are meeting all of our regulatory requirements as well as acting within the prescribed mandate. Training across all areas is provided through desk top learning, individual meetings and specific training courses to ensure our Continued Professional Development is up to date and we achieve our annual ‘Statement of Professional Standing’. This is issued annually by the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment and without which we are unable to offer advice.

We offer access to all asset classes, including:

  • Equities, bonds, investment trusts and Exchange Traded Products (ETPs) traded on all major markets
  • Raymond James Investment Services is a London Stock Exchange member firm; our direct market access provides efficient and cost-effective trade execution in real time with no additional third party broker fees for retail trades in London listed securities
  • Funds (UK registered funds; GBP, USD, Euro share classes)
  • Commodities such as gold through ETFs which replicate their underlying value

We also provide access to a full range of tax wrappers, including:

  • ISAs and JISAs, with Raymond James as the ISA manager
  • Pension wrappers, offered by 50+ pension administrators, including SIPP, SSAS, QROPS and QNUPS

Constructing your portfolio

The two main ways which help to generate returns for portfolios is firstly through the correct asset allocation. This will take several forms starting with Bonds and Equities and is referred to as a ‘top down’ approach i.e. looking at the world from above. This expands to other areas such as geographic i.e. how much is invested in UK, USA, and emerging markets etc. This progresses on to sector bias, examples of which are technology, oil, banks, and more defensive areas including consumer staples and utilities. Having established the above, we then consider the second aspect – referred to as ‘bottom up’. This is buying individual holdings, which we believe has the potential to offer the best characteristics to deliver outperformance.

*RAYMOND JAMES is a registered trademark of Raymond James Financial, Inc.