Managed Funds

Everyone needs to invest. The big decision is whether you should do it yourself and accept the responsibility for buying investments, or invest in a managed investment (or unit trust) where a professional fund manager decides which investments to buy.

The benefits of a managed investment

In a managed investment, your money is pooled with that of many other investments, so that the fund can buy a wide range of assets. This includes investment opportunities, which may not ordinarily be available to you through direct (do-it-yourself) investment such as overseas investments or large commercial properties. Managed investments also allow you to benefit from:

Diversification – spreading your money over a number of different types of investment (shares, property, bonds and cash) reduces risk. You could think of it as ‘not putting all your eggs in one basket’.

Professional Management – managed investment allows you to ‘employ’ a team of investment professionals who conduct extensive ongoing research into the financial performance of individual companies and specific securities, taking into account economic and market trends. The analysis of this information forms the basis for the buy and sell decisions of the fund.