Funeral planning has changed. The market is no longer ruled by the ‘big three’ providers, whose brands have tended to dominate at the expense of the Funeral Directors upon whom they depend for their business.
We believe that people planning their funeral want to deal with local people. They want to be sure that their funeral will be conducted with a personal touch, to their precise instructions, by a firm with whom their family has dealt for generations. Above all, they need to be sure that the money they set aside in their funeral will be invested wisely and will cover all the necessary expenses without question.
Plan with Grace is a funeral plan provider that enables you to deal with a local funeral director, the people that will organise your funeral, rather than a faceless call centre. Plan with Grace was founded in partnership with leading family owned funeral directors CPJ Field & Co Ltd and Walter C. Parson, whose experience combined spans over 500 years. Our team of investment managers and custodian trustee www.apexfundservices.com have been specially selected for their track record, integrity, and transparent approach to charges and financial reporting.
ACPI is an investment management partnership, majority owned by its senior investment professionals. We are headquartered in London, but operate globally.
We provide sophisticated investment management solutions for institutions, individuals, family offices, charities, corporations, foundations and trusts across the world. ACPI has been recognised by independent organisations such as Morningstar & Citywire for outstanding performance across a range of product offerings.
ACPI was founded in 2001 by Joseph Sassoon and Alok Oberoi, both formerly partners of Goldman Sachs. Joseph now teaches at Georgetown University in Washington, but Alok remains executive Chairman of the ACPI group. Brett Lankester joined ACPI from Goldman Sachs’s Wealth Management business in 2007 and serves as ACPI’s group CEO.
We have a well-established and highly experienced investment team, headed by portfolio managers whose investment careers have, in most cases, spanned three or more market cycles.
ACPI focuses upon capital preservation and active portfolio management on a total return basis. The partnership employs asset management professionals across the asset and investment spectrum including equities, fixed income, multi-manager, principal investments and alternatives.
We have built a reputation for listening to the specific individual needs of our investors and providing bespoke solutions across a wide range of asset classes and geographies. It is a deep understanding of both risk and its associated returns that allows us to deliver tailored investment returns for our clients.
Our primary long-term objective is to preserve and grow capital by delivering attractive, superior risk-adjusted, real returns. At ACPI, we believe that intelligent asset allocation and portfolio construction across different asset classes and geographies is a fundamental part of delivering such returns. As part of this process, we aim to capture the largest practical investment universe, including all liquid securities and asset classes across the main developed and emerging markets.
We do not believe that ‘one size fits all‘. Asset allocation recommendations are influenced by our view of macro-economic and geo-political developments, but most importantly have at their centre, the individual needs of the client. Investment management is, we believe, the management of risk not returns.
ACPI operates within a strong risk management framework that aims to reduce draw-down risk. Idiosyncratic risks are best eliminated by diversification, so ACPI diversifies broadly across industries, geographies and asset classes. However, we are highly cognisant that there can be a decreasing marginal utility from diversification.
ACPI’s investment approach combines top-down macro analysis with bottom-up fundamental security and manager research to identify the most attractive investments within a given sector, geography or asset class over the market cycle. ACPI strives to be sufficiently flexible to adjust positioning to the changing market environment, so portfolios – unless specified by the mandate - will primarily focus upon liquid investments.
Our partners and investment professionals have many years of investment experience - crucial in the current environment. ACPI seeks to strike a balance between diversification on one hand and a focus upon attractive opportunities on the other. ACPI follows an active and pragmatic investment style i.e. reducing investment levels if we cannot find attractive opportunities.
Communication with our clients and detailed reporting on investment performance is at the heart of what we do.
The ACPI Balanced UCITS Fund aims to provide investors with long-term capital preservation and growth by investing in a portfolio of equities, bonds and cash.
The Fund invests in cash deposits, international bond and equity funds to provide a portfolio diversified through both asset and geographic allocations.
There is an abundant array of investment management talent out there; we aim to unearth and encapsulate that talent into a portfolio that is diversified across asset classes and geographies.
As investors we are primarily allocators of capital, rather than fund selectors. We therefore aim to combine two key aspects of multi-manager investing:
We favour a concentrated portfolio of 10-15 managers with a solid and often repeatable investment process over the market cycle
Adequate diversification is achieved at the aggregate portfolio level through the diversified nature of the Balanced Fund’s underlying managers which have exposure to the broad asset class spectrum.
We insist upon high levels of transparency and liquidity from our managers, as well as continuous dialogue
Patience: We seek to deliver returns over the long-term, avoiding the human tendency for instant gratification
Independence: We make up our own mind and do not allow others to make it up for us
Caution: We believe the key to making money is not losing it; we focus more on what can go wrong within manager selection than what might be right.
A back-to-basics approach: We believe the most important requirement for investing is a healthy dose of common sense
Apex Group Ltd., is a global financial services provider.
With over 40 offices worldwide and 3,000+ employees, Apex delivers a broad range of solutions to asset managers, capital markets and private clients. The Group has continually improved and evolved its service suite to cover three key pillars: fund solutions, financial solutions and corporate solutions. Apex administers over $650 billion in assets globally. Apex provides a range of trustee services to corporate and private clients through its legal entity, Apex Corporate Trustees (UK) Limited.
Visit apexfundservices.comThe Funeral Planning Authority (FPA) is an organisation set up by the industry to regulate providers in the UK pre-paid funeral plan industry. Our primary aim is to ensure providers that are registered with the FPA are operating in a manner that will result in customers getting the funeral they have paid for when it is needed.
We do this by checking that all registered providers abide by a set of Rules and a Code of Practice, which exceed the statutory requirements. We also help customers who have a complaint about a plan or a provider by attempting to resolve matters with the provider. If resolution is not possible we will provide access to our independent dispute resolution process.
The FPA is not a trade or membership body that providers can just pay a fee to join. Rather they can choose to apply for registration, and then the onus is on them show that they can operate to the higher standards demanded by our Rules and Code of Practice. This is then tested on an annual basis when a providers re-registration application is considered by the FPA’s Compliance Committee.
Visit funeralplanningauthority.co.ukJeremy Attard-Manché, born in 1960, joined Noster Investments Ltd. in 2012.
Directly prior to this, he was a partner at Tell Investments, which he joined in 2003, initially in London, and subsequently also in Malta, and together with Patrick Schegg as the other principal partner of the firm, managed three Cayman-registered hedge funds, with total assets under management of c. EUR 1 billion across three funds.
Previously to this, he was a Managing Director for Merrill Lynch in London, responsible for all hedge fund distribution in Europe (including cash, equity-linked and prime brokerage products).
Between 1998 and 2001 he was head of the top ranked London-based team of Pan European specialist and generalist research salesmen.
From 1991 to 1998, Mr. Attard-Manché worked in New York and ran the U.S.-based European institutional sales team. He moved to New York in 1988 with James Capel, where he was a Senior Vice President covering U.S. Institutional clients across the United States.
He joined James Capel in London in 1985, working in their private client asset management division.
Jeremy Attard-Manché graduated with a B.A. Honours degree from Greenwich University.
Rory Hills is a City veteran with more than 30 years’ experience in research, portfolio management and sales with the financial industry. For the past decade he was Chief Investment Officer of Hilltop Fund Management, a company he founded in 2009 to focus on non-correlated investment strategies.
Prior to Hilltop, Rory spent seven years with Dexion Capital, a boutique investment bank focused on the alternative investment industry. Rory was a director of the firm from March 2005 to end-2008, where he managed the company’s Single Manager Marketing business.
Rory started his career with Cazenove in 1986 and in his seven years at the firm worked in their New York, Singapore and London offices, engaged in equity research and institutional sales. He left Cazenove in 1994, joining Crosby Securities, going on to head up the firm’s London sales team in 1996 and, following Crosby’s acquisition and integration into SG Securities, this role expanded to encompass Head of Sales for all of SG’s emerging market equity operations in London.
David Downie is a qualified Actuary with over 25 years of experience in Pensions Consultancy. David trained with two of the largest consulting actuarial firms in the UK. He is responsible for all actuarial and technical services provided by Rowanmoor including holding the appointment of Scheme Actuary to several Defined Benefit Schemes. He pioneered the concept of the defined benefit small self-administered scheme (DB SSAS) under the Post A-day simplification landscape.
David has spent several years on the committees of the Association of Pensioneer Trustees and its successor the Association of Member-directed Pension Schemes (AMPS) where he fulfilled the post of Treasurer. In recognition of his long service, he is now a life member of AMPS. David continues to be a member of the Association of Consulting Actuaries (ACA) small schemes committee. David has also advised Trustees of Funeral Plan Trusts for nearly 2 decades and is also a member of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries Funeral Plans Working Party.
Rowanmoor is the UK’s largest independent small self-administered scheme (SSAS) provider and a provider of bespoke self-invested personal pensions (SIPPs) and Family Pension Trusts (Family SIPPs). Rowanmoor also offers actuarial and other services for small group pension schemes, scheme practitioner services for small self-administered trustees with scheme administrator responsibilities, and scheme accountancy services.
Rowanmoor, as part of the Embark Group, administers member-directed pension schemes: Small Self-Administered Schemes (SSAS); Self-Invested Personal Pensions (SIPP); family Pension Trusts (also known as Family SIPPs).
Rowanmoor was awarded best SSAS provider in the 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 Investment, Life and Pensions Moneyfacts Awards.
Rowanmoor Executive Pensions Limited is the Scheme Administrator for all Rowanmoor SSASs and Rowanmoor Personal Pensions Limited is the operator of the bespoke Rowanmoor SIPP and all Family Pension Trusts (Family SIPPs) and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Register number 458260).
Visit rowanmoor.co.ukUHY Hacker Young ('UHY') are a national firm of accountants and business advisors, ranked 15th in the UK. UHY provide a wide range of accounting, tax and business advisory services from 22 locations in the UK with 110 Partners and 620 professional staff. The cohesive network of offices allows knowledge to be shared both in the UK and internationally. Our clients come in all shapes and sizes and our experience and specialisms ensure that a tailored service is offered to suit our clients' needs.
The service provided by our teams is responsive and passionate, comprising sector and service line specialists who are genuinely interested in our clients.
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