Appropriately for a group that started life managing money for the Guinness-brewing clan, Iveagh Private Investment House considers its range of multi-asset funds to be “more for the pub man than the club man’ and chief executive Richard Ford is aiming to broaden its appeal to Guinness drinkers, as well as its brewers.

Ford joined the company in November 2011 after a varied career.Having studied economics at the London School of Economics, Ford trained as a barrister until a conversation with his bank manager raised the possibility of a more lucrative career. He joined GAM in 1994, working closely with the founder of the group Gilbert de Botton.

Ford was in charge of governance, oversight and the product development function at the group, including setting up the third-party hedge fund due diligence function at the group, stimulating his interest in the hedge fund sector.

Immediately before joining Iveagh, he was chief executive of WH Ireland but also held senior roles at GAM, Fidelity and Spencer House Capital Management.

Ford has a broad remit at Iveagh, with executive responsibility for the management of the business, including budgeting, strategy, marketing and operations. His early priority has been to begin building Iveagh’s external relationships with wealth managers ahead of the RDR deadline at the end of the year, to ensure the group capitalises on the vogue for outsourcing among advisers.

Having acted as the Guinness family office for years, the group opened up to external investors in 2008, initially through its wealth fund but more recently through the core portfolio, a risk-rated fund suite of six funds launched in 2011.

The group has so far forged several strategic partnerships that have drawn in £200m from external investors spread over 2,500 clients but Ford is keen to expand this part of the business.

He says: “I want to explore strategic opportunities, acquisitions, joint ventures and, potentially, more products. There is a lot of the retail market we want to get to know better.”

These are the pub men to which he refers and he believes there are some parallels with the ancient brewing empire from which the group grew. The Guinness family provided the stuff to be drunk but left the environment in which it was enjoyed to the landlords and pub owners. For the group’s investment range, Iveagh wants to provide the engine while leaving IFAs to “do what they do best” and manage the relationship with the clients.

The competition for the assets of outsourcing IFAs is fierce but Ford believes Iveagh has a number of advantages, not least that for a relatively low minimum investment level, retail investors can have their money managed in the same way as the Guinness family. In practice, this means the funds have a tilt to wealth preservation but the current Lord Iveagh is relatively young, at 42, and so the fund managers must also accommodate the need for growth.

The funds bear the hallmark of privately run money. They are genuinely multi-asset and the team, run by Chris Wyllie, will use exchange-traded funds, direct corporate bonds and equities, investment trusts or any other structure to achieve their exposure to different areas with the aim of smoothing out investment returns. The group will also use more esoteric structures. Ford points to the group’s use of option strategies, which give it “interesting firepower”.

William Beverley joined as head of macroeconomic research in September 2011 to strengthen the group’s asset allocation capability. Asset allocation shifts may be tactical or strategic. The tactical part of the group’s fund strategy is more actively managed and strategic shifts are longer-term but Ford says both will be meaningful.

“We take a targeted volatility approach for the core funds. If we feel the world is heading for a period of difficulty, we will make a meaningful shift in asset allocation.”

Each fund has a risk level, designed to fit with the Towers Watson Global CAP:Link asset model widely used by institutional investors.

Ford has already instigated a number of retail-friendly measures in Iveagh’s fund range. Performance fees were dropped on the flagship wealth fund in April, on the basis that investors are increasingly demanding transparency of charging and Ford wanted to ensure the fund remained competitive.

The group also launched a dedicated service for Northern Ireland investors in January.

Ford says: “The RDR is a huge opportunity for us. We do not want to own the relationship with the underlying clients, we want to manage the product and provide the necessary infrastructure.”

Despite the number of multi-asset funds on offer, Ford believes there are only a handful of other companies offering similar products: “We have a low minimum investment level and we are more accessible than many of our competitors.”

The business also provides a risk-profiling tool, which advisers can use to identify the volatility range for individual clients and select the right multi-asset fund from the group’s range. Ford says the company is looking at other products but is wary of interrupting the relationship between the client and adviser.

“We are thinking about how we can offer product extensions using the existing team. We will not go down the bespoke portfolio route. It is suitable for clients with sizeable assets to invest but we do not want to offer that type of service for wealth managers. We want a relationship with the investor that allows the wealth manager to be gatekeeper.”