Imagine that you are given the chance to pick your dream Rugby, Soccer or Cricket team. With us having just Won the Rugby World Cup you might say we have the dream team already! We as an Investment Team, have been given the enviable task of selecting the best-of-the-best to work together for Investment world championship honours! What could be more exciting (scary?) and rewarding?
Well, in the arena described as “Investing” that’s our job. Backed by our enthusiastic research eggheads, at Financial Fitness, it’s our challenge to review, dissect and select Investment Fund managers to make up teams who run onto the Investment Turf every working day with the sole objective of bringing you the highest, risk-managed, returns.
Local Investment Team
Since 1996, my colleagues and I have been teaching, guiding and assisting private individuals regarding the art of retaining, building and preserving wealth. Central to that process is regular and consistent long-term saving into a selection of RSA domiciled Unit Trusts and our objective has always been to scan the available choices, using our documented selection criteria and produce shortlists of Star Fund Managers that anyone should be happy to entrust with their savings. Plus, because of our collective “buying power” we obtain institutional (substantially reduced) fees and pass those savings on to you.
Looking back, there have been many Stellar Performers within our “Investment Teams” and the list is long. For example, we were among the early investors in various funds with Coronation, Investec, Allan Gray and Stanlib over a decade ago. Each of those Fund Houses have won awards and did remain steadily in the top quartile of their sectors for many years, before becoming too big, tired or in the wrong “space”. As time moved on, our criteria suggested changes and we no longer hold any of those Unit Trusts within our Funds of Funds but the new Stars of Fairtree, Mi-Plan and IP Global Marathon have taken those Asset Allocation positions to produce world class results.
As some of you may remember, it was the combination of the above-mentioned Fund Managers (and others) that allowed our Financial Fitness IP Stable Fund of Funds to win the 2019, 3-year Raging Bull Award in the Multi-Asset Low Equity category.
So, since 1996, we have been selecting Fund Managers and building risk-adjusted portfolios for thousands of private investors. This has resulted in hundreds of our clients becoming multi-millionaires (sometimes beyond levels of wealth that they hadn’t dared dream of) and our processes have developed and evolved into 6 distinct portfolios that we utilize to build bespoke solutions for each of you, our lovely clients.
But why stop there?
Global Investment Team
During 2018, the Managing Director of IP Management Company, Anton Turpin (our fund administration firm) approached me with the idea of doing exactly the same thing in the Global Arena. I was immediately interested, as were the MD’s of 9 other notable South African advisory firms!
This began a mind-bending process of registering a Fund Administration company (called IP Fund Management Guernsey) with one of the most pedantic regulators on earth. If you have had any experience with establishing legal structures you will understand when I say that the Guernsey Financial Services Authority is “diligent”. What we thought would be a 12-month process took 30 months and their questioning, plus requests for proof of everything, was something to behold. Thanks to the dogged determination of Brett Paton at IP Management Co, we became authorised for business during July 2020 and we (Financial Fitness) launched our Global Investors Edge Fund (GIE) during November 2020.
So, this is a continuation of what we’ve been doing since 1996 and, more specifically, since 2008 with our Model Portfolios and 2016 with our Funds of Funds.
Just imagine then, that you’ve done so well picking South African “Dream Investment Teams” that you’ve been given the opportunity to pick a Global Team! As you may realise, this opens the possible selection to thousands of choices and, for many people, that may seem overwhelming. Thankfully, the investment analysis industry has developed numerous (expensive!) tools for us to comprehensively “screen” the Global Fund Managers and produce our shortlists. Then we interview the contenders and negotiate reduced fees with the Asset Managers we have chosen.
Therefore, carrying on within our 27-year tradition of selecting the “Rising Stars” we have applied that formula to our Global Investors Edge (GIE) Fund, Global Macro Fund and the Model Portfolio of GIE Flexible and Balanced. These solutions are now available, in USD, GBP or EURO.
Now, imagine if you could take your R5 million offshore allowance and place it within a risk adjusted and truly global portfolio to continue the process of diversification that we have been preaching about all these years. Well now you can and we’ve figured out all the necessary steps to make your transition into Global (hard currency) investing as easy as 1,2,3.
If we have learned anything over the past 2 year2, it should be that people are just a Zoom call away. And that’s how you should feel about your Global Investments. All the key service providers, making up our Global portfolios, have RSA representative but we often, seamlessly, talk to and correspond with their offices in Guernsey, London, Dublin, Edinburgh and beyond.
The whistle has blown and the game is on. Your Global portfolio awaits you and, for all the reasons you are aware of, this is an arena that you really should attend. Through this you can invest in one portfolio that has holdings in many of the greatest businesses on earth, with as much diversification as you should ever want or need.
Intrigued? Just call your Financial Fitness advisor to discuss how you can start, or add to, your Global Investments. There’s nothing like a bit of hard currency, housed comfortably offshore, to help you sleep at night.