Yuri Bender looks at Pictet Funds’ tentative moves to be more transparent by using a business model that targets the biggest institutions. Pictet Funds has just celebrated five years as a semi-autonomous strategic business line of the highly secretive Geneva-based private banking group, Pictet & Cie, established in 1805. Its mission is to become a leading fund wholesaler in Europe, hiring out the same expertise used to manage money for Pictet’s wealthy private clients to other private banks and fund of funds managers.

In the run-up to the Sibos financial systems conference, Roxane McMeeken gets the experts’ views on what lies ahead for open architecture and how it fosters outsourcing of back-office systems.

Naturally distributors will look at performance before picking a fund, but Simon Hildrey says they should also keep in mind the style of the fund manager, as well as the fund’s size and its cost.

Expensive goods like paintings and wines are indulgent portfolio additions, writes Roxane McMeeken.

Property has been good to investors and new tax rules could make it even better. European property shares have outperformed equity on a one, three and five year basis. So far this year property has also had a strong return in absolute terms. The main question is: will it last?

Exposure to hedge funds through multi-manager products might be more expensive, but the extra investment stands to pay off.

In this section of PWM we test the performance and volatility of two investment strategies using model portfolios. Each month we look at two baskets of shares – one global and one European.