Athena global fund review – that will be the topic of today’s article.
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Table of Contents
What are some examples of the fund options?
Athena doesn’t just have one fund. They have numerous options.
The most popular fund options are:
- Athena Global Cautious
- Athena Global Growth
- Athena global opportunities fund
Where are the funds typically sold?
In terms of geography, they are sold globally to expats, in the Middle East, Asia and beyond.
In terms of the investment platforms and life companies, they are typically offered on solutions such as Custodian Life and The Investment Platform.
What are the costs on the funds?
It varies depending on the class, but 2% per year is normal.
The main positives are:
- Your money is not at risk of going to zero because the fund is liquid. This also means that you can sell at any moment
- The more aggressive funds have been in positive territory over the last few years, earning you more than a bank account in the process.
- The UCITS structure means it should be a safe way to invest, but there are many better UCITS funds out there.
The main negatives are
- The performance of the cautious fund has been poor. It is true that people with a lower risk appetite might want to achieve lower gains, in return for lower volatility, yet the performance has lagged the market and benchmark by a huge margin.
- Even the adventurous funds have often lagged the general market and benchmarks. In a nutshell, better options exist for a similar amount of risk.
- A lot of the time, the funds are sold on investment platforms which are inferior to other options in the expat market. Often times, the IT systems, performance and/or charges are worse on some of the platforms chosen by advisors.
- The last point also means that Athena is chosen as part of a mixed portfolio with other assets. This can often mean that some of the other assets are dragging down the entire portfolio, and therefore the client needs to reassess their whole portfolio, which I have helped with in the past.
Conclusion
Athena funds aren’t the worst option in the market, but far superior options exist.
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Adam is an internationally recognised author on financial matters, with over 760.2 million answer views on Quora.com, a widely sold book on Amazon, and a contributor on Forbes.
