Multi-asset strategies remain the main draw for Union Bancaire Privée (UBP)’s discretionary business in Asia, attracting the most client interest by combining dynamic cross-asset allocation with tailored portfolio design, according to Paras Gupta, the firm’s head of discretionary portfolio management for Asia.
“Nothing we do starts with a standard mindset,” said Gupta, who also serves as the bank’s head of investment services for Southeast Asia.
The vast majority of its client mandates remain bespoke rather than off-the-shelf solutions. Most of its portfolios are designed around clients’ objectives with different risk profiles, reference currencies, and liquidity requirements. Depending on the level of customisation and complexity, mandates generally range from US$3 million to $10 million.
“However, we also realise through our client conversations that many clients have a general idea rather than ultra-specific requirements. In those cases, solutions can be brought together in a way that is near-customised yet consistent across similar clients, allowing us to achieve scale while maintaining personalisation and managing complexity,” he explained.
Approximately two-thirds of the flows continue to be directed toward multi-asset strategies tailored across various risk profiles. The remaining one-third goes into specialised mandates, where interest has been particularly strong in hedge-fund-only strategies and, more recently, mandates focused on Asian assets and equities, per Gupta.
Gupta noted that portfolio managers regularly participate in client conversations, a high-touch approach designed to address Asian high net worth clients’ traditional reluctance to delegate investment control.
DPM penetration at UBP currently stands at roughly 16% in Asia.
Centralised tactical execution
Market volatility across AI equities, commodities, and geopolitical events over the past 12 months has tested how rapidly portfolio managers can execute tactical adjustments across tailored mandates.
“There’s been a fair amount of volatility in the markets, whether it be the AI-related cycle that’s ongoing and causing its own ups and downs, or geopolitical risks, or the strong run-up and pullback in commodities and precious metals,” Gupta said, referring to the past 12 months.
Navigating those rapid cross-asset swings requires extreme operational agility, testing how fast portfolio managers can execute tactical shifts across highly customised mandates.
Gupta noted that DPM mandates, traditionally viewed as static and passively managed, have evolved industry-wide into far more active, tactical strategies designed to adapt quickly to changing market conditions.
“Now, the challenge is doing that quickly across bespoke portfolios rather than cookie-cutter, standard ones. That is where evolution has happened. A portion of these customised portfolios incorporate certain instruments that allow us to effect broad, high-level asset allocation changes at the click of a button across different mandates,” he said.
UBP incorporates certain allocations to tactical instruments in its mandates to centrally affect asset allocation changes across customised portfolios without going through each individually. This operational shift allows the team to adjust exposures, such as bringing a balanced portfolio’s equity allocation down rapidly, making management far more nimble.
By deploying an in-house managed fund that uses derivatives to adjust exposure from 100 to zero or negative, a small holding enables rapid, aggregate portfolio shifts without selling individual securities, Gupta explained.
Scaling DPM via unitised structures
UBP repurposed its unitised multi-asset solutions five years ago to apply the same disciplined investment process as its bespoke mandates to a fund structure with lower entry thresholds. The strategy serves as a core, professionally managed anchor for clients’ broader portfolios, complementing advisory and tactical investments.
“We maintain this as a core part of our offering for lower thresholds. Our goal is to extend our expertise to all clients, whether they require bespoke customisation or a more standardised core solution to complement their other investments,” said Gupta.
Client reception has been “very strong”. Starting with sizable client interest when the unitised mandate was first introduced, it remains an ongoing success, per Gupta.
With a team of six portfolio managers across Singapore and Hong Kong, UBP also manages a suite of specialist strategies, including fixed income portfolios spanning conservative to aggressive risk profiles besides its core mandates. Equity-only mandates are usually categorised by geography rather than risk profile, while alternatives form a third pillar focused on hedge funds, private markets, or a combination of both, per Gupta.
“With the macro environment as a starting point, global growth has remained quite robust, especially in the US, despite the geopolitical risks that have flared up. Looking under the hood, one can debate the reasons why growth has remained so resilient despite everything that’s going on, but the fact is there is that element of underlying growth which is reasonably resilient and likely to stay so for the near to medium term,” he said.