Fund research
Brewin Dolphin has a rigorous process for fund manager selection. The funds that we recommend have been thoroughly researched and together form a platform for our investment managers to select investments for our clients.
There are many more funds and investment strategies than individual securities and we aim to research a sufficiently broad universe so as to allow us to find managers we believe will perform well over the medium to long term. Our collective investment research is objective and whole of market. Our researched universe is defined by an initial quality screen, which considers factors such as the financial strength, organisational integrity and stability of the investment firm, in addition to manager access and full portfolio transparency.
The initial quality screen is then followed by our four-stage fund selection process which involves product performance analysis, risk and volatility analysis, product ‘style analysis’ and qualitative due diligence. Style analysis is a key part of our process and involves monitoring the underlying investments in a collective fund to ensure that a manager’s portfolio is consistent with their stated investment process. This ‘look through analysis’ is conducted monthly and forms an integral part of our portfolio selection and monitoring process.
The team meets over 500 fund managers a year specialising in all major asset classes and geographic regions.
There are times when closed-ended funds (investment trusts) become very attractive and we have a team of highly experienced experts, based in Edinburgh, to advise us which funds to select to complement existing portfolios. These experts assess the net asset value of the funds and whether this is calculated conservatively or not, as well as the quality and expertise of management and gearing employed by the fund. The research team covers a wide range of investment trusts, from those investing in UK markets to those investing in the Far East and Emerging Markets.