A local group has teamed up with an Orlando-based firm to offer a unique investment strategy to its clients.

Chairman of Richmond Investments (Bermuda) Ltd. Quinton Edness, his vice-chairman Lynda Milligan-Whyte and vice-president Arthur Hodgson have joined with Pinnacle Financial Group to offer a money management platform based on a Nobel Prize winning investment strategy.

The Bermuda group actually purchased Richmond Investments in October 2002, but the joint venture only came about this autumn.

Pinnacle Financial Group is affiliated with the Orlando-based mortgage lender Pinnacle Financial Corporation. The company has some offices in 48 states with approximately 600 employees.

Todd Boren is the new president of Richmond Investments which has a local staff of half a dozen. He said that Pinnacle Financial Corporation will bring significant expertise to the local market with "winning investment strategies that will go a long way in assisting institutions, companies and individuals with their investment requirements".

He said: "We have taken Harry Markowitz's work (who won the Nobel prize in 1990 for economics) and we have taken his theory and put it into an investing strategy for the individual and corporate investor. We have taken his theory and prize winning strategy and extrapolated it basically into something that the common and sophisticated investor can take advantage of."

Mr Boren said that the company's speciality was an asset allocation model.

"It is a conservative model in nature, but our goal and what we have been doing in the States for many years is to have returns as high as possible with the lowest possible risk. Our track record has been well above average but we've done it at approximately half the risk of the market which is what really our strength has been."

Ms Milligan-Whyte says that Richmond Investments selected Pinnacle for the joint venture because they bring significant investment expertise to the Bermuda market.

"I was deeply impressed by the company's unusual investment strategy. I have been dealing with international business in Bermuda for the past 25 years and I have met many investment managers and they struck me as quite unique. We need that type of expertise in Bermuda," she said.