The language of Investment marketing

From my experience, most investors are very trusting of whoever is advising them about where to place their money for a long term return. While a growing number of such investments are placed into international UCITs the majority of such monies are placed in the unit funds of either life assurance companies or unit trusts operated by private bankers or stockbrokers. The language of Investment marketing helps decide which is the best decision to make.

In reaching a decision to invest in any fund, investors normally make decisions on “gut feeling” as very few have an in-depth knowledge of investment markets, never mind investment products. Typically, such gut feeling comes about because of their reliance on their adviser’s recommendation as well as the positive impression that the investment’s marketing material leaves on them.

Nonetheless, there are a number of key information pieces that most investors either gloss over because they don’t read the marketing material or don’t fully appreciate the significance of the required warnings inserted on the fund factsheets or adviser’s suitability letters. Quite often, the full potential impact of these only becomes apparent to the client when they experience a financial loss. Clients need to realise that risk is present everywhere, even with bank deposits as well as the more extreme volatility that can attach to equities.

There is no free lunch for investors, yet many investment companies make a virtue out of marketing investment allocations of greater than 100% of the original investor capital. What is often overlooked by clients and advisers alike is that the “bonus” investment has to be recouped by the investment company and is done by increasing the annual management charge to counter the increased allocation. What is then forgotten is that these higher charges can continue for the lifetime of the investment and not just an initial period. The product can therefore be a relatively expensive offering instead of being a “bargain” investment.

Annual management charges are not the only expenses incurred by investors as these charges are merely the compensation payment to the fund manager. Other costs in buying and selling assets such as stockbroker fees, estate agent fees and government stamp duty are incurred. The more that such trading activity occurs, the more such costs are accumulated. The more costs, the less investment growth.

There is now a growing international trend to invest using “Passive” funds which track the broad market indices and require very little fund manager involvement. Accordingly, such funds tend to be considerably cheaper especially if international indexed fund manager offerings are used. Indeed, some of these international funds have their charging levels as low as 15% of those charged by the “Active” fund managers. When markets fall, the full impact of these management charge savings become more obvious, so the cost structure of passive funds tends to be more beneficial to investors.

With regard to market risk, investment managers are now required to grade their funds before they promote them to the public. These risk scores – 1 represents the lowest risk type while a 7 represents the riskiest – must be advised in their key investment information documents. The scores themselves are based on an analysis of the volatility of each fund using the weekly past prices of the preceding 5 years.

And finally, tax. All investment fund gains are taxable but most performance data shown on marketing brochures tends to show the gross return. Personal taxation on performance data tends to be excluded as the same fund can be used for both personal or pension needs. Where personal investment occurs any Irish unit fund is subject to Exit Tax of 41% on any growth on encashment or if encashment hasn’t occurred before eight years then the tax is deducted from such growth by the institution on the eight year anniversary.

All in all, investors need to fully understand the risks, costs, tax issues and timeline associated with what happens to their money and not to take marketing speak at face value. Too often the lack of focus on the important issues results in becoming aware of financial losses at a time when such losses can be very difficult to bear. The bottom line is – investor beware!