Investing

Discretionary investment management
for all Montgomery clients

We are active managers with our own in-house investment committee

We are unrestricted in our choice of the best funds the market has to offer

Our forward-thinking philosophy has served clients for over 50 years

‹ Clients

Our investment philosophy

Our disciplined investment process combines independent research and active fund selection to help clients to grow and preserve their wealth.

Clients’ portfolios are overseen by our six-member Investment Committee with more than 140 years of combined financial services experience. The team’s careers include Coutts, Barclays Wealth, Prudential, Brewin Dolphin, Merrill Lynch amongst others.

We invest in a broad range funds across multiple sectors, geographies and asset classes, spreading risk to achieve a diversified portfolio of investments.

On this page we explore our approach to investing and how we manage risk to achieve steady long-term performance for our clients.

“A disciplined process of independent research and active management”

Montgomery Investment Committee

Our investment process

01 Research

We search global markets, meet with leading fund managers and analyse economic trends to identify attractive long-term investment opportunities.

02 Portfolio Construction

Our investment committee filters through thousands of investments to select funds from a range of styles, regions, and asset classes, building diversified portfolios that adapt to changing market conditions.

03 Investment Committee

Every quarter our Investment Committee meets to review the global economic outlook, debate new opportunities and challenge existing holdings.

04 Continuous Monitoring

We actively monitor investments and the wider economic environment, meeting fund managers regularly and adjusting portfolios where appropriate.

05 Portfolio Management

Your portfolio is designed around your objectives, risk profile and circumstances. Our goal is simple: to help you build and preserve wealth for the future that matters most to you.

ESG is integrated throughout our process

Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors are considered alongside traditional financial analysis at each stage of our investment process, leading leads to better-informed decisions and stronger long-term outcomes for our clients.

Learn more ↓

Risk vs Reward

Investing can feel uncertain, and no one can predict how markets will behave. While all investments carry some degree of risk - the value of your portfolio can rise as well as fall - investing has historically been one of the most effective ways to build wealth, far outpacing returns from cash, bonds as well as inflation over the long term.

Investing is ultimately about balancing risk and reward: the more volatility an investor is prepared to tolerate, the greater the potential for long-term growth. For example, although past performance is no guarantee of future returns, even a steady return of 6% per year has the power to grow a £1million portfolio to £2million in just 12 years.

  • Our portfolios are carefully diversified across asset classes, regions and investment styles to help manage risk and remain resilient through a range of market conditions. Over the years, we have guided clients through significant events such as the Global Financial Crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, the invasion of Ukraine and periods of significant geopolitical uncertainty.

    Experience has shown that successful investing is rarely about trying to predict the next market move, or rushing to sell in times of crisis. Instead, we believe that remaining invested, maintaining a disciplined approach and focusing on the longer-term gives clients the best opportunity to achieve their financial goals. As the saying goes, it is time in the market, rather than timing the market, that has historically delivered the greatest rewards.

    Try our compound interest calculator.

Choosing your portfolio

Every successful investment strategy begins with understanding the client. Before we make any investment recommendations, we take the time to understand your financial circumstances, experience, time horizon, attitude to risk and capacity for loss.

As part of this process, we ask clients to complete a risk questionnaire which helps us determine the most appropriate portfolio for their circumstances. This assessment is reviewed periodically, ensuring the portfolio reflects any changes to circumstances or risk profile.

  • We manage three core portfolios: Cautious, Moderate and Growth. Each is designed with a different balance of risk and return. As the level of risk increases, portfolios hold a greater allocation to equities, offering higher long-term growth potential but with increased short-term volatility. Lower-risk portfolios place greater emphasis on bonds (known as fixed income) and alternative assets (such as gold) helping to reduce volatility and provide greater stability through different market conditions.

Diversification

We believe diversification is about more than simply holding a large number of investments. It is about ensuring that portfolios are exposed to a range of investment themes and styles, so that they are not overly reliant on any one area of the market.

This balance becomes particularly clear when market conditions change, allowing one fund to support another when it comes under pressure.

ESG

Environmental, Social and Governance

The responsibility that goes with investing can weigh heavily for both new and experienced clients. Despite rigorous reporting and disclosure laws that companies and investment funds must follow, identifying and selecting suitable investments that align with your values is more difficult than it should be.

Thankfully, ratings agencies are on hand to provide scoring systems and metrics which allow us to measure how a particular company or fund is adhering to the rules, specifically under the headings of the environment, their social impact, and how companies are governed.

The bad news is, however, that not all ratings agencies agree with each other.

In fact, ESG ratings can vary significantly between agencies, with different providers often reaching conflicting conclusions about the same investment.

More frequent heatwaves across the globe have reignited debate about the environmental cost of our growing dependence on air conditioning.

Our solution: the Montgomery ESG Scorecard

We take a pragmatic approach to integrating environmental, social, and governance as part of our broader active management philosophy, using our proprietary Montgomery ESG Scorecard to assess and rate funds before they are considered for inclusion in our portfolios.

We have developed our own proprietary ESG Scorecard, bringing together insights from independent ESG data providers, regulatory classifications and industry standards, alongside our own in-house research. The scorecard assesses both the fund manager's commitment to responsible investing—such as participation in collective investor initiatives and alignment with recognised frameworks—and the ESG characteristics of the individual fund. This blended approach enables us to evaluate funds consistently and identify those that best align with our investment philosophy.

The result allows us to filter out poorly-rated investments with conviction, and satisfy our own balanced assessment that every fund we choose must pass before being admitted into a client’s portfolio.

Renewable energy can have positive and negative Environmental impacts

Working conditions and fair pay are key Social metrics

Transparency, accountability and board oversight are key Governance principles

FAQ

  • We invest predominantly in carefully selected funds, including unit trusts, investment trusts, exchange traded funds (ETFs) and passive tracker funds where appropriate. By combining different fund types and investment styles, we build globally diversified portfolios designed to balance risk and long-term returns, while retaining the flexibility to adapt as markets evolve.

    We don’t typically choose to include single company shares in a client’s portfolio. However, we can do so if you are looking to transfer existing shareholdings to us and don’t necessarily want to trigger a tax liability by selling at this time.

  • Your portfolio is overseen by our six-member Investment Committee, which has more than 140 years of combined financial services experience. The team’s careers include Coutts, Barclays Wealth, Prudential, Brewin Dolphin, Merrill Lynch amongst others. The committee meets quarterly to review long-term investment strategy and risk, while also making tactical changes to portfolios throughout the year when market conditions or opportunities warrant.

  • We offer a discretionary management service, which means clients delegate decisions to us. We buy and sell investments on your behalf, and align your risk profile with an appropriate Montgomery portfolio.

    In specific circumstances, and provided certain criteria are met, you can request an ‘execution-only’ account where any buy/sell instructions are placed by you. We do not offer a stock-broking service so we cannot manage your selection of funds or shares for you.

  • We use a combination of both. Passive investments can provide low-cost, efficient exposure to markets, while active funds are used where we believe skilled investment managers have the potential to add value. Our focus is on selecting the most appropriate approach for each part of a portfolio.

  • Your portfolio is held securely on an independent investment platform, creating a three-way relationship between you as the client, ourselves as your investment manager and the platform. The platform provides custody of your assets, administration, reporting and online access, while we are responsible for making investment decisions and managing your portfolio in line with your agreed objectives and risk profile.

  • With discretionary investment management, your investment manager makes day-to-day investment decisions on your behalf within an agreed strategy and risk profile, allowing your portfolio to be managed efficiently as markets change. With advisory investment management, your adviser provides recommendations, but every investment decision requires your approval before any action is taken.

    Montgomery portfolios are only available under a discretionary mandate.

  • Clients are not asked to choose between ‘ethical’ and ‘non-ethical’ investment preferences. Instead, ESG - Environmental, Social and Governance - is integrated throughout our investment process by default. See the section on ESG to learn more.

  • The costs of investing with Montgomery are highly competitive with annual management fees ranging form 0.5% to 1.0% depending on the sum invested. Learn more about our fees.