Waverton is one of the investment management firms displaying the strongest growth of late, with inflows of more than £1bn over the past year or so. 

With that in mind we thought it prudent to catch up with Bill Dinning, the chief investment officer. 

It is one of the more low-key members of the discretionary management universe as its operations are largely conducted in-house, just a stone’s throw from Fortnum & Mason’s in Piccadilly. 

This (being in-house, as opposed to being near a high-end grocer) of course allows for a more granular approach of underlying security selection as opposed to sifting through others’ funds. 

Therefore Waverton have decided to cut down on bonds and top up on equities to become neutral across its four asset classes.

Speaking to Asset Allocator, Dinning said the firm had done quite well from the recent drop off in bond yields over the past two months and the profits made there were used to replenish its equity allocations. 

“On the equity side, the reality was that we’d been too pessimistic about the stock market,” he said. “We felt that there'd be more visible signs of economic weakness not just here [in the UK] and in Europe but in the US. Obviously there has been economic weakness here and in Europe but certainly the US has held up remarkably well. 

The backdrop for corporates has been much better than we thought so that gave us an opportunity to take profits in the bond market and top up our equity weighting and we’re now at neutral.” 

But he added: “I don't like being at neutral for too long, I think we should have a view, but I’m happy to sit at neutral for a little while, while we figure out in the early months of this year what happens next.”

At the stock selection level, Waverton’s investment committee added General Electric to the recommended list at the expense of Linde. He sees the considerable amount of tech in GE as an opportunity, while feeling many of Waverton's peers view it akin more to a boring utility than a future tech giant.