Charting a course for your client’s offshore portfolio

Navigate by Glacier International could be just the ticket to convince your clients that the offshore route makes economic sense. The product solution addresses a range of concerns that your clients might have about investing offshore, including how to navigate the complex sea of offshore investment opportunities, dealing with domestic tax legislation, and fund management fees.

It also assists your clients in making offshore choices to suit their specific risk requirements in a single, simple and cost-effective package. One of the unique selling points of the Navigate solution is that your clients no longer need to settle for an unnecessarily conservative fund just because they are investing offshore.

Instead they can select from a range of offshore managed funds that have been selected to satisfy very stringent criteria. From day one your clients can be confident that all of the funds in the Navigate product universe offer daily pricing for flexibility and transparency.

Funds are actively managed by reputable asset managers that ensure they are appropriately invested across asset classes at all times. And funds are categorised to make it easier to match your clients’ investments with their risk profiles. Several funds are made available under each of the cautious, moderate and aggressive risk categories.

Using risk profiling in portfolio construction is widely debated across the financial services space. The consensus is that investors have a greater risk appetite the further they are from retirement… And in recent times investment gurus have advocated higher risk investments through the early retirement years as well.

Whatever the case, financial managers rely heavily on risk assessments to ensure that their clients are in the right "mix” of investments.

Glacier International, a division of Glacier by Sanlam, assists in this regard with a customised risk profiling tool that will help you to ascertain your clients’ level of risk tolerance… This in turn informs the type of offshore funds they can comfortably invest in.

Navigate by Glacier International identifies three categories of risk-profiled funds as follows:

• Cautious Growth: Conservative funds with the lowest risk attached;

• Moderate Growth: Medium-risk funds; and

• Global Equities: The highest risk funds for investors who want the greatest potential capital growth.

"Considerable work has been put into the selection of funds under these categories,” says Andrew Brotchie, head of product and investment at Glacier International. "We are in the privileged position of being in the international market all the time, monitoring and engaging with different funds and fund-types, and are able to assist our investors with the appropriate choices”.

In keeping with the simple and cost-effective offshore solution promise, your clients can externalise as much as R1 million in this instrument without seeking local tax clearance. The administration process for smaller investments is thus simpler and more streamlined than ever before.

Your clients will love the other tax benefits in the Navigate by Glacier International offering. Navigate is packaged as an investment option within the Global Life Plan, thereby giving your clients all the associated benefits of investing within a life plan. No tax is incurred within the plan for any income (interest or dividends) or capital gains.

"There are estate-planning advantages too,” says Brotchie. "By investing via an offshore life plan issued by a South African life company, investors ensure that the investment forms part of their South African estate, thus avoiding the complications of having part of their estate located offshore”.

Fees are a major consideration for investments of this type. Glacier International has lowered the fee on the Navigate option to a flat 0.3% (including custody fee) making it among the most affordable solutions on the market at present. Your clients can elect to invest in US dollars, Euros or British Pounds with a minimum lump sum investment of $25,000 or $1,000 per month.