Five years on: what we've learned along the way

Key takeaways  Adviser needs are becoming increasingly diverse, driving demand for both off-the-shelf and tailored solutions.  The strongest partnerships start with understanding an adviser's business, clients and objectives.  Technology should simplify the adviser experience, not add another layer of complexity.

When we launched our Model Portfolio Service (MPS) offering five years ago, our focus was clear: deliver strong, consistent investment outcomes for clients. That remains our priority today. Through a combination of diversification, active asset allocation and a disciplined approach to risk, we believe we've built a track record of delivering consistent outcomes across a wide range of market conditions.

But if there's one thing we've learned over the last five years, it's that good investment performance is only part of the story. The more time we've spent working alongside advisers, the more we've come to appreciate how important support, service and partnership are in helping firms deliver good client outcomes.

Performance remains the foundation

When we launched our MPS offering, our objective was straightforward: deliver consistent outcomes for clients through a disciplined and repeatable investment process.

Five years on, we believe we've achieved what we set out to do. That consistency is rooted in two things: a clear investment philosophy and the scale to access specialist expertise across asset classes.

Our philosophy has remained consistent throughout. It is built on three core principles: diversification, active asset allocation and a risk-aligned approach to investing. While markets have evolved considerably over the past five years, those foundations have not changed.

In investment management, there is always a risk that consensus thinking leads to consensus outcomes. Rather than relying on a team of generalists, we believe there is value in bringing together specialists with deep knowledge of their asset classes and the conviction to identify opportunities that may be overlooked by the broader market.

It’s all about the partnerships

One of the biggest lessons we've learned over the past five years is that adviser firms rarely want exactly the same thing.

We believe a solutions-led mindset is critical. The growth of MPS over recent years, and particularly the growth of tailored and customised solutions within MPS, highlights that adviser needs are not uniform.

The growth of MPS has often been described as a trend towards outsourcing, as the demand on advisers’ time is increasing. Advisers face growing demands from client servicing and business development to compliance and Consumer Duty requirements. At the same time, expectations around investment research, manager selection, portfolio construction and ongoing due diligence have become more intensive.

However, the growth of customised and tailored MPS solutions suggests something else is happening too.

Many firms want the benefits of outsourcing investment management without losing the characteristics that make their proposition distinctive. Some are looking for a straightforward solution built around performance, process and cost. Others want a much closer relationship, with portfolios and service models designed around the needs of their business and clients.

What matters is recognising that different firms require different solutions. In many cases, the customisation is less about the portfolios themselves and more about how the service is delivered.

In our experience, the starting point is understanding the businesses we work with. We believe the firms that get the most from an MPS partnership are often those where there is a clear understanding of what they're trying to achieve and where an investment partner can genuinely add value, support client outcomes and reduce risk. 

Simplifying the adviser experience 

Over the past year, one theme came up repeatedly in adviser conversations: accessing information shouldn't be harder than it needs to be. Performance data, commentary and factsheets are essential, but often spread across multiple sources.

In response, we've been working with Mabel Insights to create a single, intuitive toolkit through which advisers can access everything they need about our MPS proposition. Importantly, it's available to partners at no additional cost.

Looking back, we're proud of the investment outcomes we've delivered over the last five years. We're equally proud of how our proposition has evolved in response to adviser needs.

What started as an investment solution has become something broader: a combination of performance, partnership and support.

Read the next article in our MPS 5-Year anniversary series to learn about what comes next in our evolution.

 

The value of an investment and any income taken from it is not guaranteed and can go down as well as up, and the investor may get back less than the original amount invested. It should be noted that diversification is no guarantee against a loss in a declining market.