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"Their investment knowledge and capability is outstanding"

Direct Shares

Successful investing in Australian shares requires research, information sources and dedication. Many personal investors may not have the time or the means to reap the rewards of direct share investment.

There are alternatives to making the commitment and doing it yourself. Options include full service stock broking, managed funds, or having your own personal fund manager managing your portfolio on an individual basis.

We believe that managing investments is no different from any other profession. Therefore it requires full-time professional management.

We also believe that wealth accumulated over many years of professional vocational endeavour should not be compromised by not investing the assets with the same level of full-time professionalism. Giving someone accountability for performance is a necessary step.

We combine the institutional features of managed fund investing (expertise, portfolio construction, stock selection, buying and selling) with the benefits of direct investing (access to portfolio manager, ability to tailor objectives & investments, ability to offset tax positions, etc). We do this via individually managed accounts.

Active Portfolio Management

SIRA Group offers in-house Active Portfolio Management (APM) to all clients who desire direct share portfolios actively managed for out-performance. Our APM combines the benefits of direct share investment with the simplicity of managed funds yet not having the drawbacks of either.

We analyse Australian Shares (i.e. directly held Australian shares) from two perspectives. Firstly, from a portfolio construction perspective, that is the framework upon which all investment decisions are made and, secondly, from a stock selection perspective, where a process clearly needs to be in place to rank and then choose stocks to either buy or sell.

Our focus is on providing a long-term rate of return that is better than market rates after brokerage, fees, GST and tax benefits.

Benefits of APM

. Your own personal fund manager working on your behalf and available to you to discuss your portfolio with you;
. Investments are made directly, not via managed funds, giving you all the benefits of share ownership without the drawbacks of researching companies, markets and stock prices;
. The flexibility to tailor your portfolio to maximise income, franking credits or capital growth;
. Actively managing the tax implications of transitioning an existing portfolio of shares;
. Monitoring and planning the income and capital gains tax outcomes of portfolio decisions;
. The ability to exclude stocks that conflict with your personal preferences;
. Portfolios are held via a custodian for investor security; and
. Web based, online reporting.

Risks

It should be noted that the volatility of the share market means that there will be periods of negative return. For this reason it is important to have a long term timeframe and to be comfortable with the volatility of shares. This is also why we ensure that the allocation to shares within a clients' portfolio is suitable for their risk tolerance and timeframe - for more conservative investors, we complement shares with fixed interest, cash and property as appropriate to reduce the short term volatility of returns.

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Compare to Other Options

The following table compares various investment options:

 
Discount Broker
Full Service Broker
Managed Funds
SIRA Group ASPM
Expert portfolio management
no
?
yes
yes
Investments made directly
yes
yes
no
yes
Beneficial ownership of securities
yes
yes
no
yes
Tax effective investing
yes
?
no
yes
Individually tailored portfolio
yes
yes
no
yes
Access to portfolio manager
no
no
no
yes
Personalised service
no
no
no
yes
Integrated with strategy and advice
no
no
no
yes

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Individually Tailored Portfolios

SIRA Group's APM offers individually tailored financial solutions.
Our investment team manages our clients' portfolios in the same way they manage their own funds:

. we only invest in a stock if we believe in it (we are not bound to invest in a stock simply because it comprises a significant portion of the index);
. we hold reasonably concentrated portfolios to ensure that our stock selection ability translates to higher returns for our clients and is not diluted by too large a selection of stocks;
. we do not invest in speculative stocks or businesses that we do not understand; and
. we ensure that tax implications are taken into account for all transactions.

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