Safeguarding money when world markets stumble or fall is one of the driving principals behind the new look Argus pension funds that have grown from $132 million to $228 million since launch in the latter half of 2005.

That growth has been achieved through attracting extra clients as well as reaping rewards from market performance within the portfolio-structure that is overseen by Argus Financial Ltd.

This morning, representatives from 600 of the Group’s clients will hear directly from the investment experts responsible for guiding the Argus pension funds when the group gives its first presentation since the Argus Select Funds were launched.

In store will be explanations on the philosophy, structure and performance of the select funds, and a look at the likely trends expected for 2007.

At the heart of the Argus Select Funds is a desire to avoid the heartache caused when world markets slump, as they did between 2002 and 2003 and caused many pension funds to diminish in value. The new look Argus pension scheme is designed with capital preservation as a key aim.

Lauren Bell, Argus’ life and pensions executive vice president, said: “ We have invited clients of the Argus Group to an investment presentation and the focus will be a review of the structure philosophy and performance of the Argus Select Funds, which are used by the majority of our pension clients.

“We are leading pension administrator on the Island. We have over 600 group clients, we have invited the representatives from the various companies to join us. We thought it would be useful to remind our clients about the Argus Select Funds that were launched in 2005.”

The company draws on more than 45 years of experience in pension administration.

The Argus pension plans are provided by Argus Financial Limited through a joint venture between Argus and Barbados-based Cidel Bank and Trust, which manages over $1.9 billion.

Cidel’s Bill McKay, the select fund portfolio manager, said: “The funds have been performing well. We evaluate the risk and each manager. It was a pretty substantial shift in philosophy when we set up these funds from the way they have been managed previously. We very much have a focus on capital preservation.

“We look at risk the way most clients look at it — which is the risk of a loss and we set up a portfolio so that when markets are doing well we are going to participate and when they are doing badly that’s when we are going to show performance.

“The portfolios are structured so that if we hit another bear market they are positioned to perform in that environment.”

He said there was a near-50 percent drop in the financial markets between 2002-03. If that should occur again, the aim is to ensure Argus pension plan clients do not lose sleep worry about their funds being drawn down.

“So what you do is set up a portfolio so that from a strategic basis it doesn’t matter what the markets are doing, your client’s risk profile is going to be OK, when markets are doing badly the goal is on preserving capital.”

Explaining how that is achieved, Argus Financial Ltd. chief operating officer Henry Perren said: “We have created a Bermuda mutual fund company that buys other funds, so our job is to manage other managers, pick other funds. What we create are diversified portfolios across equities, bonds, alternatives and across regions and currencies.

“When the markets are up we want to participate and when the markets are going down we want to limit our participation and we do that by investing in different types of products.”

Describing the differences between the old pension fund and the new one, he said: “There used to be portfolios rather than funds. You might have had ten units of Fidelity fund, ten of Orbis, etc. Now what you have is ten units of the Argus Fund, and that Argus Fund in turn owns the units of the other funds.

“The reason for the change is that when you have portfolios and you want to make one of these tactical changes, we used to have to go out and make 9,000 transactions — one for each of our clients, now we can do those tactical changes more efficiently it is just one trade within the fund.”