Who we are
OUR HISTORY
The origins of the firm began in 1999 offering investment consultancy and advice to UK pension funds. We launched an advisory service in 2004 before creating IPS Capital in 2007 as a discretionary investment management firm, which is independently owned by the Partners.
IPS Capital has a business structure that allows us to ensure that the interests of our clients are placed at the centre of the decision-making process at all times. Our business is built around our clients and our success depends on meeting their investment objectives.
OUR PHILOSOPHY
Our firm was formed with the belief that many bespoke investment managers in the market were too reliant on simply balancing equities and bonds and repeating the formula for all their clients. Diversifying investments is fundamental to managing risk and returns and we knew could enhance the traditional approach to a bespoke wealth management service by accessing investment opportunities that are not available to traditional wealth managers.
We combined our institutional and private client experience to provide genuinely diversified investment strategies with institutional investment standards - adding investments where appropriate to core portfolios to enhance our clients returns. This approach allows us to embed ESG investing within our process expanding the investment outcomes for clients with investable assets of over £1 million.
OUR AIMS
We aim to be the best-in-class wealth management firm, providing steady returns on capital, while minimising the stress of serious economic fluctuations. To do this, we built and developed our own sophisticated and robust risk management system IPS ART since no ‘off-the-shelf’ product fulfilled our rigorous requirements. Dramatic movements in asset prices happen regularly, but we continue to develop and enhance our risk control systems so that we may provide a controlled framework to the portfolios we manage.
What we do
Our Approach
We follow an active, multi-asset approach to investing. We believe that over the long-term this provides better capital protection and risk-adjusted returns. Our approach to diversification means we are unhindered from the more traditional approach to simply blend equities and bonds.
Our investment philosophy is guided by the following three principles:
- It is fundamental to fully understand clients’ needs and expectations
- Asset allocation is at the core of the investment process
- Active investment management - buy and hold may not be the optimal strategy for a client
We are active investment managers – this does not mean we constantly make changes – it means we are always monitoring portfolios and will make adjustments and change when we believe the opportunity to protect or enhance client returns becomes available. This creates greater investment diversification and superior client outcomes.
IPS has incorporated institutional-strength economic, investment and fund research into its investment process by partnering with some of the world’s most experienced investment research houses. Deep understanding of the fundamental and technical aspects of each investment opportunity means that IPS is less likely to be distracted by short term headlines and more able to focus on the longer-term risks and opportunities for client portfolios.
Asset Allocation
Our asset allocation process covers nine asset classes, our opportunity set. These are categorised into three key investment styles; growth, protection and real assets. We use extensive market research from both our in-house team and some of the world’s leading economic research houses to generate investment ideas which are then debated by our Investment Committee.
