There has been much publicity over the last few years in relation to the collapse of various investment products including Agricultural Managed Investment Schemes (eg Timbercorp, Great Southern), Unlisted Property Trusts (eg MFS, Rubicon etc), Mezzanine Finance funds (eg Westpoint, Fincorp, City Pacific etc), Collateralised Debt Obligation products (eg Basis Capital), and Margin Lending products that allowed the mortgage asset holder to gear for their own purposes (eg Opes Prime, Tricom, Lift Capital etc).

WE WOULD LIKE TO LET OUR CLIENTS KNOW THAT WE HAVE NEVER RECOMMENDED ANY OF THESE FAILED INVESTMENT PRODUCTS.

Our somewhat ‘conservative’ approach to what is available in the market has helped us steer clear of any of the above problem areas (which turned into disaster areas!).  At this time we are not aware of one other financial services group similar to ourselves, or large bank / financial services provider that does not / has not had any of the abovementioned investment products on their approved investment list for clients.

Whilst equity markets have decreased investment values from November 2007 to March 2009, the managed investments we have selected for clients have been sound and robust in their mandates, mostly performing above their relevant benchmarks, and riding out the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and its economic / financial impacts.   Fund managers have invested primarily on a longer term basis to enable recovery over time and have been / will continue to be carefully monitored (and ‘switched’ when necessary) as part of Stonehouse’s research procedures.

Perhaps sometimes it is what we choose not to recommend to our clients which turns out to be truly valuable advice.

Regards,
Your Stonehouse Advisory Team