Offshore bond top-slicing – the devil is in the detail
Advisers and clients could be caught unaware by a little-known change to offshore bond top-slicing, warns Rachael Griffin, financial planning expert at Old Mutual Wealth.
Analysis
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Analysis: Are performance fees a fair deal?
Performance fees are often seen as a necessary evil. But the unambitious hurdle rates most funds employ mean fund managers also get rewarded for underwhelming performance. Is that fair?
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ANALYSIS: Will wealth managers avoid scrutiny on charges?
Has the FCA asset management review missed a trick by not expanding its demands for transparency to wealth management?
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ANALYSIS: Is it the right time to be piling into bonds?
Portfolio advisers have been looking at equity market valuations rather nervously for some time, tilting towards less risky assets, taking profits and holding more cash.
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ANALYSIS: In the world of ESG how easy is it being green?
With melting ice caps and dwindling fossil fuel reserves, it’s easy to see why some £87bn (€99bn, $112bn) of assets have been funnelled into ethical and sustainable funds – but how wary should investors be when opting to put money into these strategies?
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ANALYSIS: Income investors on alert as dividend cover plummets
UK income investors are on high alert after research revealed that dividend cover for companies listed in the FTSE 350 has fallen 18% in the past year, hitting its lowest level for seven years.
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Top planning opportunities two years on from pension freedoms
There are exciting new market opportunities for the taking, two years after the UK pension freedoms were introduced that raised customer awareness of the need for pension planning, says Matt Ward, communications director at AKG Financial Analytics
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ANALYSIS: Time for Carney to change the rate record
It turns out Mark Carney is a man for turning after all, and it’s about time the bank governor realised the time has come to change tack with the UK economy.
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Life assurance and the digital fightback
Life assurers are having to make big strides to catch up with advisers and mass market retail providers when it comes to digital innovation to meet growing expectations from high net worth individuals (HNWI), according to Lombard International Assurance’s Aidan McClean.
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ANALYSIS: Brexit one year on
It has now been a year since the UK electorate made, as a British fund manager put it recently, “a huge strategic error of the like the country hasn’t experienced in maybe a century” by voting for Brexit.
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Political uncertainty boosts case for active over passive funds
Passive funds have performed strongly in recent years, benefitting from relatively low volatility and more accommodative monetary policy in most developed economies, says David Macdonald, VAM Funds’sales and marketing director.
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ANALYSIS: How are today’s wealth managers using ETFs?
Wealth managers traditionally allocate meagre chunks of their portfolios to passive, but with assets in exchange-traded funds passing the $4trn (£3.2trn, €3.6trn) mark globally last month, that could be set to change.