Berry Asset Management announces benchmark-beating returns across its portfolios
Berry’s Balanced Growth portfolio has produced a gain of 8.9% over one year compared to a rise of 8.0% in the ARC Sterling Balanced Asset PCI Index and 6.8% in the ARC Sterling Cautious PCI Index (provisional figures for ARC). This result builds on the solid outperformance generated in the previous twelve month period.
Over the past two years, which includes a period of extreme volatility for a variety of asset classes, the Balanced Growth portfolio has gained 21.4%, compared with gains of 16.1% and 13.1% for the ARC Sterling Balanced Asset and ARC Sterling Cautious PCI Indices respectively.
Mark Robinson, Chief Investment Officer, said “the positioning of our portfolios over the medium term has proved to be beneficial for our clients during this recovery phase for markets. We are delighted to be in this position and remain focused on producing superior investment returns to match our award winning service.”
| Berry Balanced Growth | ARC Sterling Balanced Asset PCI | ARC Sterling Cautious PCI | |
| 30/9/2009 to 30/9/2010 | +8.9% | +8.0% | +6.8% |
| 30/9/2008 to 30/9/2009 | +11.5% | +7.4% | +5.9% |
| 2 year Cumulative | +21.4% | +16.1% | +13.1% |
ARC Private Client Indices (‘PCI) are provisional
Key tactical investment decisions at Berry in the last 12 months have included:
Increasing equity exposure close to the top end of each risk mandate
An increase to higher growth areas such as Asia and emerging markets
Reduced exposure to sterling dominated assets
An increasing focus on higher-yielding equity funds globally
A significant shift towards index-linked securities
A commitment to gold.
Mark Robinson added: “We are very pleased with these results, particularly given the diversity in the asset classes that we are using to deliver returns and the generally lower levels of risk being taken in our approach. Increasing our equity exposure towards 60%, which is the top end of the risk boundary for the Balanced Growth portfolio, has been the right move.”
“We continue to believe that inflation will be the ultimate by-product of the massive global monetary and fiscal stimulus that is prevalent today. We have positioned our client portfolios with solid commitments to index-linked bonds, gold and assets that should perform well against this backdrop. We are particularly concerned about a bubble in conventional government bond markets, which we feel will suffer when government policy is reversed.”
“Our equity commitment is concentrated on large, higher-yielding companies and those which are exposed to the stronger growth impulses emanating from Asia and emerging markets. We believe that clients’ portfolios are well positioned for what are still quite challenging economic conditions, but we are prepared to make further tactical shifts in allocation where appropriate.”
