New brooms...

There are a few changes in this edition of Investment International. We want to make the magazine more relevant to you, more interesting and lively, and more attractive to read. First up is our new ‘20 Things You Need to Know’ section. It’s alright reading articles, but sometimes it’s useful to have some nuggets of basic information laid out for you. Our first foray into information-processing is ‘20 Things You Need to Know About Fund Management’. As most of us have some money invested in funds, it is useful to know a few things from the ground up.

We also have a new-look news section, with expanded coverage of new products with deeper analyses of the products on offer; plus a wider round-up of news from the offshore and expat world that we think will be of concern to you.

Further into the magazine, we have inaugurated a private healthcare feature . It is important for people living outside their country of origin to have some private medical coverage. It’s no good investing smartly offshore if you’re not around to enjoy spending it. Each month, the PMI feature will look at some aspect of the health industry, or healthcare in general. This month, ‘Should you go through a specialist health insurance broker when taking out PMI, or is it just as good to go straight to an insurance company?’

The alternative investment pages are casting their net wider to root out some of the less-usual ways you can put your money to work. How about buying a racehorse? Or just a hoof, maybe, as part of a syndicate? Nigel Davies has found out that it’s easier to get into the gee-gees than you might think.

Our ‘Asset Allocation’ pages are changing too . People designing their own portfolios need to know what balance of equities and bonds the experts are recommending. We’ve clarified the information on these pages, so you can now tell at a glance what mix of investments is popular among the experts.

Finally, we say goodbye to our desert island-dweller Selkirk, who has reported back from his hideaway for a long time. He was rescued in January by a passing steamer and is now in a deck-chair drinking gin. In his place we have designed a ‘Who Are You?’ page. Mammoth amounts of global research is done every year. We will root out some of the more interesting and relevant stuff and report on it. This month, we look at the results of the annual ranking of corrupt countries throughout the world. Finland: squeaky clean. Bangladesh: pretty bad. You might be interested to find out what the country you live in is like. It could save on the parking ticket bribes.

James Featherstone
Editor
jfeatherstone@ccplcemail.co.uk