ADVANCED FUND SELECTION

For private banking customers, fund selection is carried out through a specialist fund selection unit in Guernsey, constructed by James Ellis of the group’s SG Hambros subsidiary. The ability of this regularlyupdated electronic database of 10,000 products to pick mutual funds and construct portfolios for clients has been extensively demonstrated to PWM . There are few rival institutions with such an advanced fund selection tool.

The SG Hambros tool is used by all of SG’s private banking units in Spain, France and Asia. “This means there is just one team selecting funds and negotiating conditions, not duplicating costs,” explains Mr Collas. “It is better to have one team, with big bargaining power, than 10 teams talking to Fidelity all at the same time.”

Swiss groups have often said it is impossible to impose group strategies and distribution agreements on some of their more idiosyncratic operators. But Mr Collas has persuaded his private client advisers to adopt a factory-style approach. “It’s not so difficult to convince private bankers to use the fund selection system,” says Mr Collas, adding a warning shot to any mavericks, “if they are putting clients at risk by not using our asset allocation and fund selection criteria, then that’s another story, as it is my duty to deliver a better return to clients. For instance, our view is that the bond market is very different today than it was in 2000. We are telling our private bankers not to promote the bond product during this period of time.”

Ellis: 10,000 funds