My IFA has suggested we get into this instead of the OEICs we currently have. But when he includes the words “Hedge funds”, “Venture Capital”, “China”, “USA” etc my gut feeling is that I could be asking for trouble. The amount invested in each of the above areas depends on our risk rating and so may be small with the rest probably in UK equities.
The company he wants to use is Brooks.
Ideally all I want is income paying investments so that we have money coming in between jobs (I’m agency IT so it’s a bit hit and miss at the mo) with a bit of capital growth. Nowt greedy.

bump (only the one, promise!)

Have you explained to him fairly firmly what you actually want? Because a delicate mix of hedge funds and VC would not usually be advised to someone looking for an income return I don’t think. Of course, an independent financial advisor will assess the suitability of a particular product for your needs based entirely on the amount of commission it will generate for him, but there is some anecdotal evidence that they won’t always be too blatant about it if you are very clear about what you need.

🙂

We did explain our need for a balanced approach to income and capital growth but he was more concerned about the proportion of property funds in our portfolio and the need to get a better spread of investment types.
This seemed fair enough but these types, as I’ve mentioned above, worry me. Also, with the big reduction in capital value of our property funds, selling them now and buying another income funds would mean a minimum 10% return to maintain the same level of income we have now. I think that is unrealistic.