Investing your money

Our core beliefs

Underpinning our investment approach

We’re guided by evidence-based principles, focused on delivering consistent, long-term value for clients.

Core portfolios are our foundation

The Arboretum Core Portfolios remain our primary offering. That’s because they maintain high diversification and selective factor tilting to optimise risk-adjusted returns, without constraints associated with ESG labelling.

Why we tilt our portfolios

Markets are broadly efficient, making consistent outperformance hard. Strong academic and historical evidence suggest tilting toward factors like value, size, and profitability improves long-term returns.

Equities are what drive growth

In the main, equities drive portfolio growth, while fixed income provides stability. Our fixed income allocations avoid high-risk or long-term bonds to maintain diversification without any unnecessary risk.

Cost efficiency is always prioritised

We prioritise cost efficiency through low-cost index and factor-tilted funds. Our approach is grounded in evidence, aiming to maximise long-term value and help your savings grow steadily, without unnecessary complexity or expense.

Be cautious about ESG investing

The ESG landscape lacks standardisation, making it highly subjective and prone to interpretation. Additionally, many funds labelled as “ESG” include companies that may not fully embody sustainable practices.

A unified growth-oriented approach

We don’t separate portfolios by accumulation or decumulation. For clients drawing down, cash reserves ensure liquidity during market downturns, reducing the need to sell assets at a loss and preserving long-term value.

Model portfolios are a better option

They’re rebalanced less often than multi-asset funds, offering more flexibility for withdrawals and better insight into underlying fund performance. Yet they’re less tax-efficient than multi-asset funds when held in taxable wrappers.

Hidden hassles of non-UK funds

Non-UK funds can generate income that wasn’t paid out but still needs to be reported for tax if held outside of tax wrappers. We only recommend them within tax wrappers like ISAs or pensions, where these rules don’t apply.

Extra support

Resources

Good financial planning doesn’t stop after a single conversation. We’ve got plenty of additional resources to support you all year round in the form of bite-sized articles and regular investment updates.

View all resources

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Arboretum Financial Planning
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