Emerging markets, mostly Asia ex Japan, also looks promising to the Charles Stanley team as does European markets where Cunliffe’s crucial measure, corporate earnings, looks set to pick up.
The approach to asset allocation at Charles Stanley has been tightened since Cunliffe arrived at the firm in January 2016 and it is now very much strategically driven and risk controlled, something he says he is “excited” to have played a part in.
He has already overseen a shake-up in the asset management division during his 15-month tenure where the focus has narrowed towards each person doing a few things well and not spreading the talent too thin.
“It’s all about that personal touch which is why we at Charles Stanley think we’ve got a great business model. We’ve got the asset management division which can provide portfolios which are much more centralised but you’ve got portfolios with a much higher degree of flex in the private client side with a significant amount of bespoking.
“The two arms sit side by side and complement each other which is absolutely the way it should be.”
But future developments will be focused on improving the set-up and increasing assets under management rather than expanding the offering much further.
“We now have a first-rate portfolio management capability; we’ve got a strong research capability as well. We’re not short of idea generation and we’re much more able to take control of the day-to-day asset allocation decisions as a sort of autonomous investment unit,” Cunliffe says.
“We’re in a much better place than we were before, we’ve got a lot of talented people, most of them younger than me which I think is a good thing.
“We have team spirit and desire to make this a very successful and scalable business.”
