Managing your portfolio - our investment philosophy

At Cardale, we have a conservative yet innovative approach to investment that embodies what we regard as the most important factors in the process of building and managing your portfolio. We set out not only to preserve the real value of your capital and income but also to enhance it over the longer term. Our investment philosophy is simple - effective risk management allied to careful stock selection optimises investment performance. We have a firm belief that holding shares in well-managed and financially sound companies is the best method of achieving both capital and income growth in the long term.

Our investment horizons are long term. To take risks that could lead to a speculative profit over a short time, but might equally well offer the very real possibility of a significant and permanent eventual loss of capital, is not a policy we feel comfortable with. We do not pretend to have a crystal ball but we do prefer to keep the obvious excesses of the stockmarket at arms length. This inevitably means, that, at times, we are out of kilter with conventional wisdom. To some, such independent thinking may appear a risk; in our view, it is what you are paying us for.

Managing portfolios - Our investment process

You will have your own investment manager, who will be responsible for the day-to-day management of your portfolio. This ensures continuous and clear communication that is designed to keep both you and us fully updated with your circumstances and requirements. We believe your portfolio must reflect not only a constantly changing market but also the appropriate profile to suit your personal situation, which might also change over time. This is why a professional management service is crucial: to assess how best to achieve your investment objectives without taking risks; to determine what proportion of your assets should be invested between cash, fixed interest stocks and equities and to select the appropriate securities for your portfolio.

Balancing risk and reward

Global stockmarkets in recent years have borne witness to the fact that high risk does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with high reward.

At Cardale our 'absolute return' ethos is designed to generate real (after inflation) returns through a suitable combination of asset classes which comprise of:

• Equities
• Fixed Interest
• Unit Trusts
• OEICS
• Investment Trusts
• Cash

As a firm, we endeavour to remove as much risk from the investment equation as we can. However each client has their own approach to it. By understanding this, we are able to build a portfolio that is tailored to both the client's time horizons and tolerance to risk. By building a balanced portfolio of investments, we believe it is possible to minimise risk and yet maximise return.

Often the return on cash will be the most prudent benchmark. The use of an index-related benchmark may be appropriate for some clients and wholly inappropriate for others. It is for this reason that at an initial meeting we will form a clear definition of risk that enables us to best achieve clients' investment aims within the agreed parameters, as defined in our terms of business.