“Our advice to expats retired or retiring abroad is to carefully consider moving their pensions while they still can,” he says.
Another office set for expansion is Hong Kong, where Forth has four advisers, all of whom, according to Tracy, are doing good levels of business. “New business has flourished on the back of regulatory changes that have flushed out some of the competition and created a level playing field that suits highly compliant operations like ours.”
For Tracy, the brightest light at Forth currently is its new range of investment strategies. Earlier this year, the firm partnered with Morningstar to create low-cost model portfolios made up of passive trackers and ETF-based investments.
The offering marries two low-cost Ucit fund strategies managed by Morningstar in five portfolios, risk-rated from cautious to adventurous. The portfolios have a base currency in sterling with hedged options available in dollars, euros and Swiss francs.
“Anyone who tells retail clients they should invest in long caps, short caps, Brics or whatever nonsense is being pedalled these days by men in gold chains, should think carefully,” he says. “These types of investments are speculative and rarely end well for anyone other than the salesman.”
Future proof
“We treat clients correctly. Our consultants are all top people who are well qualified and sleep well at night,” says Tracy. “Expat clients need a well-diversified, low-cost global portfolio, linked directly to their risk level, and in the currency they plan to spend their portfolio in.
“High-cost active managers are a thing of the past. Retail investors have to realise there are few active managers beating the markets, and those that are will return to the mean over time.
“I have been through many financial crises and one thing we know for certain is that markets will go down again. When they do, you have to have the time in your planning for them to recover and you have to be in liquid assets that will not stay down for ever.
“Our clients receive the market at a fraction of the cost of active managers and they win. We manage pension funds, retirement money, people’s life savings and we will not take unnecessary risks with our client’s financial futures.”
