HSBC discretionary launches portfolios as it targets advisers

HSBC Global Asset Management’s discretionary division has launched 10 model portfolios that it plans to market to intermediaries.

The range, which will sit alongside the company’s Absolute Return and Customised Portfolio services, will offer greater asset allocation flexibility and bring more consistent management.

Robert Candler, director, discretionary division for HSBC GAM, said the ‘satellite’ approach is designed to create a sufficiently broad range that can be used by wealth advisers to balance a client’s legacy holdings.

Last year, the division gathered £600 million from advisers, and Candler is targeting a similar amount in 2009.

The business, which sits between HSBC retail and private banks, manages £3.2 billion on behalf of about 5,000 clients across the UK.

Candler said: ‘It gives us flexibility and more control of portfolio management. It is a way to limit the number of portfolios we manage and enables us to focus and pull together assets for consistency
of performance.’

Asset allocation and individual stock and collective selection will be managed by Jim Dunsford, chief investment officer, with a team of five.