Pyrford offers a team highly experienced in managing global portfolios using a disciplined process which has produced excellent long-term results. The depth of the research undertaken allows the team to build focussed portfolios of high quality companies which are held regardless of their popularity or size. For Pyrford the key risk to be avoided is that of losing money for our clients, not that of appearing different from a benchmark.
Our products fall into two main groups: "Absolute Return" products where we initially make an allocation between equities, sovereign fixed income and cash, and "Equity Only". The market and stock level analysis for equities is common to both products and the stocks held are largely the same.
Our investment strategy is based on a long-term, quality, value-driven, absolute return approach, with both top-down and bottom-up elements included. At the country level we seek to invest in countries that offer an attractive market valuation relative to their long-term prospects (as determined by our research) and avoid countries that do not. At the stock level we identify companies that offer excellent value relative to our in-house forecast of long-term (5 years) earnings growth. Companies are only considered for inclusion in the portfolio after a thorough discussion with management about the company's business model, strategy and approach to environmental, social and governance factors. It has always been our belief that a company taking an irresponsible approach to ESG factors is at heightened risk of suffering a deterioration in its financial performance over our holding period.