Offshore Investments

We provide access to regulated international investment platforms and to product ranges that are generally not available through a domestic adviser: multi-currency portfolios, fixed income, structured notes, private equity placements and collective funds including UCITS and ETFs.

How holdings are structured

Where it suits the client, investments are held within a regulated trust, with each investor allocated their own sub-trust to hold their portfolio. That gives one reporting line across several managers and currencies, allows the participant to nominate beneficiaries directly, and keeps holdings inside a structure that does not have to be unwound and rebuilt every time circumstances change. How a switch between investments inside such a structure is treated for tax depends on where you are resident — a question for your own tax adviser, and one we will tell you to ask.

Capital is at risk

Values fall as well as rise and income is not guaranteed. Structured notes in particular are complex instruments: the return depends on the terms of the note and on the creditworthiness of the issuing bank, and a note can return less than the amount invested even where the underlying index has risen. We go through the terms, the costs and the downside scenarios line by line before anything is committed, and we do not put a headline coupon in front of a client without the conditions attached to it.

How we select

Selection starts from the jurisdiction the client reports in, the currency their liabilities are denominated in, and the horizon before the money is needed — not from what is easiest to place. Where a product pays us a commission, we will tell you what it is.

What we will not do

We will not recommend a product before the structure holding it is settled. We will not put a client into an instrument we cannot explain in a sentence. And we will not build a portfolio around a tax outcome we are not qualified to certify.