Our Investment Approach

Ibbotson aims to deliver consistent investment returns by applying a disciplined investment process built around in-depth investment research, a focus on asset allocation, and innovative portfolio construction. This involves developing an investment strategy, including an appropriate asset allocation and a combination of high-quality investment managers and passive market portfolios, to achieve the investment objectives.

Investment Research

Research is one of Ibbotson's core foundations. The integrity and quality of our research is essential to our investment process. Ibbotson's capital markets and investment manager research is rigorous and comprehensive.

Asset Allocation

Ibbotson believes that asset allocation is of paramount importance in the delivery of investment returns. Underpinning our unique approach to allocation is our capital markets research, which involves a review of the fundamental and technical drivers of each asset class, and the development of expected returns and risks, along with detailed scenario analysis for each asset class. This research is used in conjunction with our portfolio construction process to develop the strategic asset allocation and ranges for each diversified trust.

We believe that reward for risk varies through time and is closely related to valuation, and we therefore adopt a dynamic approach to investment strategy that involves moving the asset allocation from time to time within the ranges. We aim to adjust the asset allocation to preserve capital when the risk of loss is perceived to be high or to take advantage of an attractive risk/reward opportunity.

Investment Managers

Depending on the type of investment strategy, we combine active and/or passive managers to build a portfolio that aims to perform consistently with the investment objectives through different environments. Active managers seek to maximise outperformance within agreed risk constraints relative to a benchmark. Passive managers seek to match performance relative to a benchmark.

Ibbotson endeavours to identify active investment managers with superior investment capabilities. We believe that well-resourced, experienced investment managers with an alignment of interests with investors and a differentiated investment strategy have a better chance of delivering investment returns in excess of the market.

Active investment managers adopt different investment styles in management of portfolios. Although returns are not guaranteed, we expect each of our selected active managers to deliver investment returns in excess of their performance benchmark over the longer term. By effectively combining managers with different styles, Ibbotson targets more consistent returns relative to the benchmarks without sacrificing long-term performance.

To find out more about our current roster of investment managers, click here.