Independent investment consulting for charities and family trusts.

  • Our aim has always been to provide clients with a highly personal and responsive investment consulting service, but within a flexible framework. Each project is designed for the individual client. Find Out More ➝

  • Our sole focus is investment reviews for charities and family trusts. We provide a service, not a product and always design the review for the client’s individual needs. Every assignment starts with a clean sheet, recognising that each client’s circumstances are different. Find Out More ➝

  • We have worked on a huge variety of projects for a wide range of charities and family trusts. Find Out More ➝

Perfectly Balanced.

Established in 2001 to provide independent investment consulting to clients with long-term objectives, typically charities or family trusts, Portfolio Review Services are a group of four experienced investment professionals who pride ourselves on providing a personal and responsive service to our clients. All of us have investment backgrounds and extensive experience with charities, both as Trustees and consultants. This gives us a valuable perspective on the challenges faced by our clients and means that we have quarter-by-quarter experience of how investment managers are performing and reporting. To date, all our clients have been referred to us personally.

Our Services.

Our aim has always been to provide clients with a highly personal and responsive investment consulting service, but within a flexible framework. Each project is designed for the individual client. We assist Trustees with manager selection and strategic asset allocation and help clients to understand and interpret investment returns delivered by professional investment managers. We are experienced in both governance reviews that result in no change, and projects that start as governance reviews and result in significant changes. At the end of the process our clients will have a well audited investment review and feel comfortable that their portfolios are being managed to meet their objectives. We always start a project by meeting a client to understand what they want from the review and follow up with a detailed proposal setting out what we will do, how long it will take and what it will cost.

 Why Portfolio Review Services?

Specialists.

Our sole focus is investment reviews for charities and family trusts.

We provide a service, not a product. We always design the review for the client’s individual needs and are entirely flexible about the start and end points of projects.

Tailored Approach.

We do not work with an approved list of managers, but genuinely start every assignment with a clean sheet, recognising that each client’s circumstances are different. Our starting point is always to understand fully what is required and expected from the investment portfolios.

We adopt a tailored, modular approach, taking each project one step at a time. This means that the project evolves logically and clients do not pay for work that is not required.

Selection & Insights.

Our approach to manager selection places great emphasis on qualitative factors, especially the people who would manage your portfolio.

Our ongoing consulting roles and trusteeships give insight into the ‘client experience’ with a wide range of managers.

Projects Undertaken:

Scope & Size.

Since 2001 we have worked with a wide range of clients, varying in size from less than £2 million to over £800 million.

Variety.

Each of our clients are different and our projects vary extensively. Some examples of the projects we have successfully delivered include:

  • Fiduciary responsibility of Trustees

  • Drafting and updating the Statement of Investment Policy

  • Review of strategic asset allocation

  • Ensuring the investment mandate accurately reflects the client’s investment objectives

  • Evaluation of the current managers and their suitability for the mandate

  • Evaluation of potential managers and help with manager selection

  • Effective oversight of investment managers

  • Sustainable rates of withdrawal

  • ‘Total return’ approach, including smoothing measures

  • Getting the right balance between capital growth, income and income growth

  • Advantages/disadvantages of appointing more than one manager

  • Pooled funds versus segregated portfolios

  • Passive versus active investment

  • Ethical restrictions and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policies

  • Benchmarks and comparators

  • Absolute return versus relative return

Experience.

PRS have worked across a wide range of charities and family trusts, including universities, schools, medical and religious charities among others. If you would like to know more about our experience, please just get in touch.