Charlotte Thorne

100% investment restructuring for USA client

An American client has an individual portfolio with us. We had been running this SRI (socially responsible investment) portfolio for three years when the client’s lawyers advised us of a complete restructure of the portfolio, which required: replacing the current two investment vehicles with four brand new vehicles each with different investment restrictions; redeeming the current portfolio completely by year end; minimising any fund holdbacks and penalties for early redemption; liquidating the existing investment vehicles; reinvesting equivalent money in the four new vehicles; ensuring where possible that the funds would carry over any provisions such as high water marks from the old set of structures to the new set and managing this transition whilst keeping as close to the agreed asset allocation target as possible. I co-ordinated the legal advisers and the client’s administrators; developed and managed the project plan liaising with the 20 funds to identify the best way to transition the cash and advising the lawyers on the timing of the restructure and most manageable way to reinvest, to preserve the client’s good relationships with the funds. Then developed an options strategy to ensure that the client remained as close to target asset allocation as possible during the transition period. The project took four months to prepare and a further two months to execute fully and every item in the portfolio was successfully redeemed and reinvested with no penalties or holdbacks incurred. All this was done within the previously agreed fee structure for managing the portfolio for no additional cost.