W&F Issue 10 2018

Wealth & Finance International - Issue 10 - 2018 5 TEND is offering its members the opportunity to invest in their passion for fine wine. TEND, the Lifestyle Investment Platform, Announces New Partnership with Cult Wines Lifestyle investment platform TEND has today announced a new and exciting partnership with Cult Wines, one of the world’s premier fine wine investment companies, with offices in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. By creating co-ownership portfolios of fine wine on the TEND platform, the partnership will offer members the opportunity to invest in a portfolio of premier grade wines, with a target return of over 10% per annum, in combination with unique tasting and other lifestyle experiences. Cult Wines has established an impressive track record of consistent returns for their clients. The company won the Queens Award for International Trade in 2017 and has ranked in the Sunday Times’ Fast Track 100 - a list that recognises the UK’s fastest growing private, and SME international export, companies - for a number of years. Cult Wines MD, Tom Gearing, com- ments: “Cult Wines believes in fine wine as a genuine alternative asset class, which provides significant di- versification benefits from mainstream financial markets. Not only can the sector provide consistent, double digit returns but appeals as an enjoyable, collectible, and tangible asset. We are delighted to be partnering with TEND, who share those values and whose technology platform brings a fresh approach to alternative investment opportunities.’’ TEND founder and CEO, Marco Abe- le, adds: “We’re incredibly excited to be partnering with another world class brand to offer our members further possibilities to enjoy impressive re- turns on collectible investments while nurturing their interests or passions in whichever fascinating world they chose, in this case fine wine. TEND’s partnership with Cult Wines brings the best of both to a new audience, via our app and market leading platform which utilises distributed ledger tech- nology at its core. Abele continues: “What we’ve learned over the past year is that it’s absolute- ly not just about a financial return, it’s much more about an emotional return. TEND members will soon be invited to exclusive, themed tasting events, hosted by Cult Wines, where they will enjoy special vintages amongst fellow enthusiasts. “We will hold our first tasting event in Zurich in November and, thanks to Cult’s reach and reputation, we’re delighted that we’ll be joined by Philippe Develay, General Manager of renowned Premier Grand Cru Classé (A) St Emilion winery, Chateau Pavie, who will guide us through an evening of fine wines.’’ Overvalued US market and appreciating growth stocks are not a sound bet for the future. Q3 Update from Saracen Global Income and Growth Fund The continued outperformance of both the US market and of growth stocks has proven a challenging backdrop for the Saracen Global Income and Growth fund. Co-managers of the fund, Graham Campbell and David Keir, are convinced their strategy of owning lowly valued stocks with strong balance sheets and attractive dividend yields will prove successful over the long term. At present, the fund has a focus on more cyclical and value stocks, many of which are listed in Europe. According to David Keir, “Although the European Union has its problems giv- en the current valuation premium, the continued outperformance of the US market is remarkable, and we would argue unsustainable. Growth stocks and bond proxies have all performed strongly given the backdrop of QE and low interest rates. Looking ahead, we expect market leadership to change as interest rates rise and cen- tral banks’ balance sheets normalise. This should benefit fund performance given our cyclical and European bias. Graham Campbell added, “Whilst we are clearly non-consensual with our current positioning, we strictly adhere to our investment process. This has resulted in finding more investment opportunities that would be described as ‘Value’ and these businesses are more frequently domiciled in Europe. In addition, the valuation of European markets is at a 25-year low and the relative underperformance remains at a 2-standard deviation event, or around a 5% probability.” The fund benefited this quarter from strong global performance in the healthcare sector, with holdings in Roche, AstraZeneca and Pfizer post- ing strong quarterly results. Although there is political pressure on drug prices, Saracen considers the sector likely to be a major beneficiary of de- mographic trends and of growing de- mand in emerging markets. Saracen is a long-standing sceptic of the value of the FAANG stocks but its holding in Microsoft made a positive contribution to the fund owing to the overvaluation prevalent in the technology sector. In addition, after the correction in Emerging Markets, the fund analysts are focusing research to look for undervalued opportunities. News