Angus Holmes, Associate Portfolio Manager at Lincoln Private Investment Office, recently joined investment professionals for Citywire’s Private Office Roundtable.

The discussion considered how private offices are responding to changing client needs and a more complex investment environment. Across the series, the panel explored asset allocation, fixed income, private markets, hedge funds and the opportunities attracting attention today.

A consistent theme in Angus’s comments was the importance of purpose. In our view, an investment should not be included within a globally diversified portfolio simply because it offers access to a particular market or strategy. Its role, risks, liquidity, cost and correlation to the wider portfolio all need to be understood.

Angus also highlighted the need to be clear about the outcome expected from each component of a portfolio, whether income, capital preservation, diversification or a differentiated source of return.

The roundtable also considered the broader shift towards a private office model, as clients seek more co-ordinated advice across investments and their wider financial affairs. For Lincoln, this begins with a clear understanding of each client’s objectives and views on risk, followed by a personal asset allocation within which every investment has a defined role.

Watch the Citywire Private Office Roundtable series:

How asset allocation is changing in private offices

Family offices adjust as bond markets ‘break psychological barriers’

How family offices are navigating private markets

Avoiding correlation: Private offices see ‘golden age for hedge funds’

Why more wealth clients are ‘heading to private offices’

Distressed debt to hedge funds: What family offices are looking to buy next