Charles Stanley is a client-focused investment management firm offering a genuine personal service across the full range of investment management service including Investment Management, Financial Planning, Asset Management and Charles Stanley Direct, a direct-to-client investment platform.
The core pillar of Charles Stanley was, is and shall remain the provision of investment management services to private clients. The Investment Management Services division, is the bedrock of the business and we pride ourselves on providing a bespoke service for our clients. In order to provide this truly tailored service that serves the best needs of our clients, we have an autonomous business model which enables our investment managers to have complete independence over investment decisions.
Alongside the investment management business is our Asset Management division. This division provides pooled solutions and model portfolios to a range of clients, from institutional investors with multi-million pound portfolios to valued retail clients with smaller portfolios. The division also houses Charles Stanley’s investment research capability, covering asset allocation, stock selection and collective vehicle selection. As such, the division both enhances our private client investment management business and provides an excellent growth opportunity.
Charles Stanley takes a broad approach when evaluating the merits of an investment. In addition to the traditional financial considerations, we recognize that non-financial factors such as ESG can bear just as much influence on the performance of a company. We will therefore dedicate the necessary resources to engage with investee companies when we believe ESG-related issues may pose a risk to the performance and value of the company in question. When consideration is given to governance or ESG issues, it will be done as part of our centralised investment research process. However, due to our autonomous business model, the investment strategy and decisions ultimately lies with the investment managers.
Additionally, we are a whole of market private client firm offering a broad range of investment services to our clients, who may be invested across a wide range of investments, and in all asset classes open to retail investors. As a consequence, at any one time our clients in aggregate may be invested in thousands of different securities. This necessarily reduces the typical aggregate holding size, and thus the scope for direct engagement with the governance of investee companies, and instead favours an approach based on the identification of quality investment opportunities for our clients, and the disposal of investment holdings where there is dissatisfaction with an investment's prospects for growth.
Any information provided in this report regarding our funds-under-management or voting practices is in relation to only discretionary and advisory-managed funds given that although we only vote discretionary client funds-under-management, the ESG processes and activites incorporated into our research are available to our investment managers for the benefit of advisory-managed clients. Advisory-dealing and execution-only funds have been excluded as the investment decisions will be driven by the client.