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Not one to sit by the sidelines, Seven Investment Management chief executive Tom Sheridan is always ready to pitch in, charge forward and putt for success.

For 7IM, hitting the back of the winning net comes in the form of its high net-worth and independent focus.

As a pioneer in both wrap and multi-manager platforms in the UK the Surbiton hockey club captain sets his sights in keeping 7IM at the top of its game.

Mr Sheridan explained its strategy and said: “7IM has been pretty conservatively positioned for the past two years and still is. There are times to make money for your clients and there are times not to lose it.

“We do not promise people we are going to be the number one fund in the land, as the level of risk is one they have to take, but they should not expect us to be on the floor either.

“The view we have been taking is cautious. The combination of asset management and platform is unique and very important, and that will create a unique offering. We also, as we have integration with other platforms on the market, take a very interesting range to access investment world, which will become a popular approach.”

However, although built for the long-term investor, Mr Sheridan vows 7IM will not stand on its laurels.

He said: “One thing that investors will be sure of, is continued volatility in the market. Until we can get the banking system to function again, it is hard to see a sustained recovery, as we have a combination of a severe downturn and a banking crisis.

“Previously we have hit downturns, but the banks have functioned to help move the economy, to get back on its feet again.”

His solution is to remain consistent in the mixture of risk, by taking into account cash, fixed interest, commodities and equities.

He continued: “The most important aspect of investment is to figure out what type of investment or asset classes people want to be in or out of. The implementation of that decision is best left to somebody else.

“You allow yourself to take advantage of whatever is in the market including what will be coming up tomorrow, that is not included in today.

“The proportions of that change, and every three months we take another look at the world and we decide whether we want to add a little more risk, or take it off the table.

“What we do not want to do is to re-balance to a set formula, as we would rather take a look at what is happening next, then gear ourselves towards that view.”

Its logical, yet practical game plan, should come as no surprise to those who know the laid-back New Yorker.

The 56-year-old spent two decades with US stockbroker Prudential Bache on three continents, with the latter years as chief operating officer of its International Division in New York, having also taken the reins of its Australian and London-based subsidiaries.

After 21 years, he became managing director of Barclays Stockbrokers where he pioneered an industry solution to the handling of the major demutualisations in 1997, introduced the UK’s first fund supermarket and introduced the UK’s second internet stockbroker, which later acquired the clients of both Fidelity and Schwab stockbrokers.

Together with Justin Urquhart Stewart and Graham Stott, he founded 7IM in 2001.

The high net-worth business, in its service and platform, aims to cater for the larger more sophisticated clients.

Its platform, which is connected up to Cofunds, FundsNetwork, Selestia Skandia, Zurich and Aegon, provides much flexibility, to both its customers and the way in which the regulator plans to mould the industry.

He explained its relevance with eagerness and said: “With platforms, they do a pretty good job in providing access to investment markets. Our real business on the 7IM platform is on the higher net worth side, so the other platforms are happy to connect to us as we do not really compete with them, we are a high net worth complement.

“This is extremely important in the context of the retail distribution review. The regulator is a little bit twitchy about saying to a practice it can call itself independent if it only uses one platform. This is primarily because they get locked into that platform’s tax wrapper and the client’s money cannot move around so easily.

“The regulator is the driver behind the retail distribution and will play a massive role. It is trying to elevate the standards in the industry to make financial planning a profession to make clients think of in the same arena as accountants and solicitors.

“It is trying to move the industry away from a product sales culture into a product advice culture, where that ambition is quite a reasonable one.”

He said: “What it is setting out to achieve is quite a reasonable goal. The FSA is concentrating on transparency in charging. They are not so comfortable with products and services where the clients cannot actually see how much they are paying.

“Platforms become part of the answer for the FSA to get their charging mechanisms to go where they want to. With platforms, there is a unique and identifiable debit for the client account for the services rendered.”

Mr Sheridan continued that its solution has also aimed to provide a unique investment service for financial planners.

He said: “In the UK, most of the advice relationships for personal finance are in the hands of financial planners, whereas in other countries, this is in the hands of the banks or stockbrokers.

“The financial planners do not come from investment backgrounds. Most of the management are refugees from large companies. We wanted to create a business that did a couple of things a little differently.”

"As the equities market goes down, like it has now, people become frightened and want to sell their investments and wait a couple of years for it to go back up, in order for it to feel comfortable enough to buy it.

“It is that behaviour that costs them and impacts on their performance. The reason to give them a portfolio that is more diversified, is to keep them in line to stay with the programme and help them do better.

“We do not want a salesman making the investment decisions, and we do not want a call centre environment. We wanted somebody who knows what they are doing, know the voice of the person that is calling them, they become much more involved in the financial planner's business than a normal fund manager might do.

“We also provide them with technology in the form of platforms as part of the service delivery, so the financial planner and client can see everything if they want to.”

But despite Mr Sheridan reinforcing exactly what 7IM represents, he remains realistic to what investors are seeking, especially in the downturn.

He said: “The world is capital constrained at the moment, for developing solutions for the circumstances that we have. This forces people to really think about how to invest.”

But he stressed: “The world is going to force us back into a less leveraged, more common sense environment, when we get to the other side.

“However, it is not all doom and gloom. We are going through the painful correction, before it gets back to a better world.”

Girlie Garduce is senior features writer of Financial Adviser

CV Tom Sheridan

1975: Regional Operations Manager, Prudential-Bache-Securities, New York

1981: Manager Commissions Department, Prudential-Bache-Securities, NY

1982: Vice rresident, International Division, Prudential-Bache-Securities, NY

1987: Chief executive officer, Prudential-Bache-Securities, Melbourne Australia

1992: Chief operating officer, international division, Prudential-Bache-Securities, London

1996: Managing director, Barclays Stockbrokers, London/Glasgow

2000: Co-founded Seven Investment Management, London