Advisers

Every fund manager adopts an investment approach which they believe will provide greater returns for their investors.

At United we have developed a 'sector specialist, multi-manager approach', which allows us to utilise some of the leading domestic and international fund managers. We have created a series of sector pools, for example in Australian equities, international equities, domestic bonds, cash and listed property trusts. Each pool's assets are managed by a panel of highly regarded investment managers. Our diversified portfolios are constructed by using varying proportions of each of the above sector pools.

In tandem with this approach, we consult with independent research houses to assist in setting investment strategies and benchmarks and also advise on strategic asset allocation.

United's approach to investing is based on the premise that "any single investment manager is unlikely to deliver above average investment performance across all asset sectors".

We aim to provide investors with consistent above average performance at a relatively low risk. Our sector specialist, multi-manager approach achieves this by combining highly regarded investment managers for each asset class. This enables the capture of excess returns while reducing any unintended or unrewarded risk.

A major portion of investment risk is associated with manager styles. Selecting one style over another carries a higher risk as style performance is cyclical and difficult to predict. Therefore, it could be argued that the best way to produce consistent performance is to eliminate the style effect.

We manage the risk of any style bias by researching, combining, and monitoring managers with an overall objective of producing a 'style neutral' fund. By 'style neutral' we mean that the fund displays no bias towards any particular investment style ie 'growth' stocks as opposed to 'value' stocks, or large cap as opposed to medium or small cap stocks.

Related information

United's investment philosophy and capabilities

Details of our in-house investment team