Standard Life ezine - The Cutting Edge...with Julie Hutchison – Standard Life Savings & Investment Ezine

Standard Life's Savings & Investment newsletter for advisers

Issue 6: August 2007

Naturally, it doesn’t make sense to put all your eggs in one basket. Diversification is fundamental in balancing risk and reward in an investment portfolio. A traditional approach to diversification is investing in different asset classes - equities, bonds, property and cash. Similarly, equity diversification can also be achieved by investing in different sectors and countries.

Increasingly, investors are also recognising that investing in alternative asset classes, such as infrastructure, is another way of achieving diversification.

What is infrastructure?
Infrastructure can be defined as companies, facilities and networks that provide essential services such as water, sewerage, roads, bridges, airports, energy distribution and telecommunications networks.

Infrastructure provides the foundation upon which the growth and development of an economy depends and is acknowledged as a precondition for economic growth and competitiveness.

Why invest in infrastructure?
Making an allocation to infrastructure adds the diversification of a low correlated, income generating asset to an investor’s portfolio.

Infrastructure lends itself to long-term investment:

basic essential services with constant demand profiles

strong market positions due to high barriers to entry

predictable and sustainable long-term growth correlated with GDP

This leads to investment characteristics including:

predictable and sustainable income and cash flow profiles

long-term, steady growth potential

returns often linked with inflation

Macquarie Global Infrastructure Securities Fund
As part of a strategic deal with the Macquarie Group, Standard Life offers UK investors the opportunity to diversify their portfolio by investing in infrastructure securities via the CF Macquarie Global Infrastructure Fund.

Macquarie recently launched the Fund, structured as a UK OEIC, for investors in the UK. Standard Life has an agreement with Macquarie to be the only life office provider offering the Fund on an insured basis until early 2008. Macquarie is recognised globally as a specialist in the field of infrastructure investment, and we believe that this will be an exciting venture.

The Macquarie Group
The Macquarie Group provides specialist investment banking and financial services around the world with more than 10,000 people in 24 countries.

Macquarie is a market leader in the infrastructure funds management sector with significant experience in the assessment and selection of infrastructure assets. Macquarie’s infrastructure securities team currently manages global portfolios for clients in the UK, US, Australia and Asia totalling more than £1.6 billion (as at 30th April 2007) of funds under management.

Click here to learn more about Macquarie’s Fund and the infrastructure asset class.

Availability
You can invest in the Fund through our life and pensions platforms, including our Capital Investment Bond (CIB). The charges for the CIB are shown below. Charges and additional expenses are not guaranteed and subject to change.

	Annual Management Charge	Additional Expenses
Level	1.8%	0.11%
Stepped	2.3%	0.11%

Other exclusive funds available from Macquarie
As part of Standard Life’s agreement with Macquarie, we also offer access to the Macquarie Global Private Equity Securities Fund and the Macquarie Property Securities Fund through our life and pensions platforms. In the next issues of e-zine, we will bring you more information on these exciting opportunities.

Past performance is not a guide to future returns. The value of investments can fall as well as rise. No guarantees are given regarding the effectives of any arrangements entered into on the basis of this content.

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