Non-equity above-inflation investment

Right now bonds look pretty high risk to me, so I concur. The 'what's the share price today' mantra is pretty meaningless unless you plan to sell/buy .. just as the 'what's my house worth' isn't very interesting unless you plan to buy a spare, or downsize (or die) or something. I think I'll invest in good dividend paying companies which can do excellent business with either governments, or the few thousand billionaires who will soon have all the money (prior to the revolution). 8>.

Thanks. OP is fussed about P2P exposure -- hence the vast majority is in QAA and 30DAA in preparation for a more thorough exit, indeed the point of this thread was meant to be finding a non-equity investment for that P2P money.


Thanks for the comments about equities and risks associated. I tend to agree but have been told otherwise by people more seasoned than I, so it's good to hear some other views to balance theirs. Probably I need to get myself a decent financial advisor since there are life choices that will need cash lump sums of varying amounts in the next 5 years..

I think you have to sort FAs by trial.

Take 20% of your capital and give it to the one you like, run them for 5 years, if they make more (including their fees) than you did with the 80% of the capital then, give them more, if they made less then sack them and repeat.  I've sacked 2 so far.

I spent a lot of time with the big guys, talking, I found them ignorant, arrogant and unpleasant with a keen eye on regulation and systemised paperwork but very little interest in my expectations despite spending hours on finding out "what you like".  Beware their enormous surveys, they have mainly been written by people who think "it is raining in Tokyo also" is good English.  If you do do their surveys, sit down with them first and make sure you both agree what the term "risk" means for example.

Don't believe their "historical figures", these are normally based on a "perfect portfolio" which amazingly they never actually offered to a client, but they would have... I really dug down deep with two companies to look at their so called historical results and they were very very doubtful.  I also asked to talk to other clients, no, there was no way I could speak to other clients.  I even went to St James lunches to talk to other clients and was underimpressed by the results that they were "delighted" with.

Finally I chose one of the smaller guys in one of my local towns, I've run him for getting on 5 years, I have two reviews annually, we exchange emails on regular world events and still he has only 20% of my capital and he is beating our targets and in the last three years he is beating my performance including his fees.

Do ask for succession planning from the business you sign up with.  A friend is a "MD" at St James and she is nothing more than a clerk, with no interest in what happens to her "company" once she stops work.  Titles like Director mean nothing to the big guys, but it normally means "salesman". 

To comment on @bobo

The first is that you have to accept risk surveys as a fact of life in the modern “ finance sector. You just need to grin and bear it and don’t shoot the messenger, they are only doing what the boxtickers in compliance are asking them to when they ask you to do a risk survey.

A quick tip for helping find the needles in the haystack is to ask them if they operate exclusively off model portfolios and approved stock lists.

if the answer comes yes (more likely with larger firms), then their hands are going to be tied by what various committees and the compliance bods allow them to.  That’s not to say they cannot to a good job with model portfolios and approved stock lists, but you’ll have to tread especially carefully when choosing someone who operates on that style (I.e. you don’t just want a human passive robot).

If the answer comes no (more likely with mid-market downwards) then they are more likely to devote more time to structuring something a bit more bespoke for you.

Bear in mind all this depends how much you are bringing to the table because the regulatory environment involves a lot of paperwork and also constrains their remuneration.  Don’t expect anyone to jump for joy if you’re only presenting them with £50k for example.  Compliance and remuneration aside, you can’t realisticallly expect them to do much with small sums as it is hard to buy meaningful amounts of equities, achieve reasonable diversification etc.

When I exposed myself to an IFA, with a highly prudent profile (I did all the yadda yadda but what I said to them was "more to lose than to gain").  Anyway so they managed to lose um 20% maybe (in 2009-11, how's that for contrarian) and I pointed out that was the question they asked in the profiling questionnaire, so really I was obliged to stop.