Until now, the company, which traces its roots back to 1845, has catered mainly for British investors.
Chris Saunders, private client manager at the company, said Seymour Pierce has been working closely for some time with wealth managers and financial advisers to develop a product that would suit their overseas and international clients. The new service went live late last year, he added.
Under the Seymour Pierce Core and Satellite discretionary management strategy for offshore investors, around 80% of assets are invested in a “core” allocation consisting of exchange-traded investments – mainly ETFs – to achieve what the company’s asset managers consider to be a “solid base of global, multi-asset exposure”.
The remaining 20% is allocated to a “satellite” investment strategy which seeks a higher level of return through active trading of shorter term, long/short “tactical opportunities”, Saunders said.
Here, investors benefit from Seymour Pierce’s in-house research strengths and expertise in the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market, where, according to Saunders, it has consistently ranked among the top brokers based on numbers of corporate clients.
The Satellite strategy also permits investors to participate in initial public offerings and to hedge equity exposure when market weakness is anticipated.
Core & Satellite fund
In a separate but related development, Seymour Pierce has announced the launch of a Gibraltar-domiciled collective investment fund based on a similar investment philosophy, known as the Core & Satellite Fund, which is also aimed at international investors.
The Core & Satellite Fund is described as a medium risk, balanced fund that aims to provide long-term capital growth, in excess of its benchmark, the APCIMS Balanced Portfolio, “while reducing volatility through diversification and an element of hedging”.
According to Seymour Pierce, the fund places a priority on the liquidity of its component investments, to avoid the kinds of problems that occurred in 2008, when some investors were locked into funds that were unable to sell assets in order to return money to shareholders.
‘Cash injection’ report
Earlier this week, the Financial Times reported that Seymour Pierce was “approaching rivals about injecting money into or taking [it] over”, citing unnamed people it said were familiar with the discussions. The report noted that stockbroking had become "an increasingly competitive sector", and that there had been a “spate of takeovers in the industry” last year.
The company said it is not commenting on the FT story.
