Kevin Richards, First Global's vice-president for investment management. - file

First Global Financial Services (FGFS) will next month launch a managed portfolio product, its vice-president for investment management, Kevin Richards, announced this week, saying the initial target will be existing customers.

"Essentially what we are doing is coming up with a new product ... for clients, and it is going to be based an equities, fixed-income, or you can have a balance between both," Richards told the Financial Gleaner on Wednesday, following a briefing of investors Tuesday night.

Fairly new phenomenon

The phenomenon of portfolio management is fairly new in Jamaica, but FGFS will likely still have to jostle for market share against Mayberry Investment's Managed Equity Portfolio).

The Mayberry product, introduced two years ago, was also the brainchild of Richards when he worked at the family-owned brokerage.

But the FGFS executive - who joined the GraceKennedy subsidiary a little over a year ago - insists that the FirstGlobal product will be different from the one he created at Mayberry, which consists of a range of stocks tracked by the Mayberry Performance Index.

Different

"It's going to be different because that was one portfolio for equities. Our plan is to have three different portfolios based on your risk tolerance," said Richards.

"People who are not accustomed to volatility, for example, we will not put them into volatile stocks. There are people, who, for one reason or another, may have an objection to a particular stock in their portfolio. This will allow this objection. Plus, the cash in their account - if there is any cash - is going to be invested and the benefits accrue to them."

But that does not mean that clients will influence the management of their accounts on a daily basis.

"We will structure the particular portfolio based on the client's risk portfolio," said the FirstGlobal executive.

Subscribers to the FGFS' managed portfolio will have the option of Jamaican as well as foreign equities and instruments.

"You can buy both international and local bonds (and) both regional and local equities," said the investment manager.

"We will probably look at mutual funds as an option - probably an equities mutual fund that will give clients exposure to the U.S. equity market."

ashford.meikle@gleanerjm.com