Platinum Business Magazine Issue 72

Page 20

All is Not Lost Challenging. Unprecedented. Crash. Uncertainty. The new trending phrases of despair. The once dreaded ‘B’ word seems like sweet relief right now. Good news! Adding to the seemingly all-encompassing gloom is not my intention. By Aaron Phillips, Senior Investment Broker, Avantis Wealth national duty. There are considerable profits to be made.

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y message for investors is one of calculated optimism. Most investors, at this moment in time, will be going through a recalibration of objectives and strategy to take them forward. On the tip of many investors’ tongue could be something along the lines of ‘look for opportunities’; however, most will be trying to sit tight in their bunker until ‘something’ happens. The current position of the property market and why we believe that UK developers can hold the key. Avantis has spent the last ten years selecting investments from global providers to deliver diversification for investors. We look for exceptional value for investors while helping companies improve their cash flow and fulfil projects. It has never been a better time to be involved in helping maintain UK businesses and UK jobs. But it is not all about being altruistic or a sense of

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We deal in corporate bonds and loan notes. If you are unfamiliar with these, please contact our office for a more in-depth understanding. They are a necessary means for micro and SME’s to raise capital to fulfil projects and increase cash flow. Without a second glance, these can be immediately flagged as high risk. But if you look at the security involved in a lot of these projects, it will surprise you. Unlike many assets, you can choose to invest for income or growth, and perhaps best of all, the rates are fixed negating any volatility. Investors invariably get the luxury of a first charge over assets to secure their investment. The problem facing us is that traditional asset classes have failed investors over the last 20 years. Stocks and shares, for example, have failed many. Using the FTSE 100 index as a guide, the previous peak was at the turn of the millennium when it topped 7,000.

On April 1st, it stood at about 5,500, a fall of 1,500 or roughly 22% over the period. Investors generally assumed that the stock market would show an average annual return of 4%. If this had continued over the past 20 years, the FTSE 100 index would now stand at 15,000, almost three times the actual value. The importance of the housing market to the FTSE100 has been evident recently as large developers pulled up the index by its bootstraps. Government Gilts and Savings Accounts. This latest series of rate cuts, concluding (for now) at 0.1% have slashed any income that investors would have been counting on. Gold is far from stable, and it’s probably best to not even mention oil right now. Diversification among these asset classes alone is not diverse enough. UK Property: From 1975 to 2018, a period of 43 years, the property market has delivered an average capital growth


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