Report of the Investment Committee 2008 - St James's Place

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STAMFORD ASSOCIATES 2008 REPORT TO THE INVESTMENT COMMITTEEIn such turbulent times we consider it critical to keep a cool headand to avoid ill considered reactions. We do not generally quoteinvestment gurus and we are also not fans of sound bites. However,we consider that whoever first said “buy low, sell high” was offeringsome very sound advice. This fundamental investment principle ispertinent at three levels:1. At the portfolio level all indications are that your investmentmanagers are prepared to stay with portfolios that they considerto be lowly valued with substantial upside potential;2. At the manager level we consider it appropriate to retaininvestment managers who happen to be experiencing short termcyclical underperformance if we believe that they are likely toadd significant long term value;3. At the fund level we are advising our clients to avoid knee jerkreactions away from depressed equities and corporate bonds infavour of cash and gilts as this will lock in significant capitallosses. Clearly this is inevitable if an individual has a need torealise capital in the short term.Our ongoing manager monitoring role remains critical to retainingconfidence in your investment managers, in particular within thecurrent economic and equity market environment. Declining marketshave a direct impact upon investment managers’ profitability and,ultimately their viability in business terms. Therefore is also importantfor us to focus upon non-investment issues such as their business plans,resources and morale.In such turbulent times we are pleased to report that the St. James’sPlace investment manager platform has been extremely stable overthe year. Oldfield Partners and Thornburg Investment Managementwere appointed as co-managers of the St. James’s Place High OctaneFund in April, and we have the utmost regard for the key investmentprofessionals, namely Richard Oldfield and Vin Walden. At the sametime, Invesco Perpetual was appointed to the St. James’s PlaceCorporate Bond Fund, and we view Paul Causer and Paul Read, thetwo Henley-based portfolio managers, as being in the same mould as12
STAMFORD ASSOCIATES 2008 REPORT TO THE INVESTMENT COMMITTEENeil Woodford, albeit, of course, in respect of bonds rather thanUK equities. Barclays Global Investors were appointed to the newSt. James’s Place Alternative Assets Fund in August and the expertisethat this manager brings to this investment proposition is arguablysecond to none.In conclusion, there appears to have been a negative correlationover the year between stock market volatility and investmentmanager activity. We derive considerable comfort from this becauseit is consistent with our belief that your investment managers andtheir portfolios are well placed to deliver favourable investmentresults going forward, both in an absolute and relative sense.We hope that this report provides reassurance regarding the robustnessof the St. James’s Place investment management platform and we verymuch look forward to serving investors and the Partnership to ourbest ability in 2009.Stamford Associates LimitedDecember 200813
Page 1: The 2008 Annual Report of theSt. Ja
Page 4: The strength of Partners’ relatio
Page 7 and 8: Can investors take comfort from his
Page 9 and 10: How should investors react to this
Page 11: STAMFORD ASSOCIATES 2008 REPORT TO
Page 15 and 16: Investment ManagerCommentariesThe f
Page 17 and 18: Neil WoodfordSJP/Invesco Perpetual
Page 19 and 20: Nick PurvesSJP/Schroder Managed Fun
Page 21 and 22: Bernie HornSJP/Worldwide Managed Fu
Page 24: Members of the St. James's Place We

Report of the Investment Committee 2008 - St James's Place

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