New organisation educates advisers on real returns

The Association of Real Return Investment Advisers (ARRIA) was formed to provide advisers with a forum to discuss strategies for investment and currently has four adviser and four fund manager members.

“The aim of the association is to give advisers a forum where they can discuss real return investing and gain a greater understanding of how such strategies can be integrated into clients’ portfolios,” ARRIA founder Philip Reid said.

“As independent advisers, we are seeking to get together so we can help each other to evolve best practice by incorporating real or absolute return investment strategies.

“The group is led by advisers, so they can access the information they need from fund managers to use real return strategies on behalf of their clients.”

ARRIA conducts quarterly roundtable meetings, with the next one to be held in May.

Standard Life Investments' investment director, whole business, Matthew Newham said that with the global financial crisis impacting the way investors are looking at portfolios, real return investing has “an important role to play.”

“The global financial crisis has forced investors to focus on managing risk, and as a result they are moving away from the traditional balanced portfolio of equities and bonds and moving towards real return investing,” Mr Newham said.

“Real return investing has an important role to play in terms of allowing investors to seek growth but also limit downside risk.

“Absolute return or real return strategies aim to provide positive returns irrespective of market conditions with reduced volatility compared to traditional portfolios.”

Financial advice members of ARRIA include WLM Financial Services principal Matthew Walker, Northstar Financial Advisers principal Alistair Saunders, More4Life Financial Services principal James Walker-Powell and Fergus Hardingham of FM Financial Solutions.