Mulford, who in July this year was appointed head of investment management for the UK, was set to work rolling out UBS’ bespoke discretionary offering in the UK.
“UBS was at the vanguard of the financial crisis and everybody subsequently got sucked into the vortex as we know, so it was a pretty interesting time to be starting,” Mulford says. “It is an interesting time for us at the moment as well, with new developments in the pipeline and some big changes recently.
“Previously, the investment management team was responsible for discretionary money and there was a separate part of the business that handled advisory but, as of 1 July, the two have merged. It makes sense having the same team running both.”
UBS Wealth Management’s UK business has been growing rapidly, Mulford says, and now has around £18bn in client money. While Mulford is based in London and focused on the UK market, the team’s investment outlook is global.
“We are a global investment management team of around 450, with 25 in the UK. We don’t want everyone reinventing the wheel in all locations, so we share content focused on our own countries with each other.”
Undoubtedly, Mulford’s most notable asset allocation call has been in taking a significant hedge fund holding. “My priority over recent months has been re-organising and enhancing our advisory offering, starting with our investment themes and our hedge fund offering. One of our big views as a firm now is that we want to be invested in hedge funds. We recommend 14 to 18% allocations at the moment,” he says.
“We have a very successful fund of hedge funds managed internally, which is used in segregated portfolios. However, we also run £3bn in multi-asset funds across a range of risk profiles.
“Due to UCITS rules, unregulated funds of hedge funds cannot be held in our fund range. We are exploring how to incorporate hedge funds into our fund business, with a view to launching next year.
