Over the past 12 months, Mark and I have been working on a major upgrade to how we assess investments and construct portfolios. We’re excited to introduce the Intech Rating System — a disciplined, evidence-based framework designed to deliver greater quality, consistency, and transparency in your investment experience.
This new system will be applied during your July portfolio review, alongside any adjustments required from the recent Federal Budget. As a result, you may see some refinements to your holdings — all aimed at strengthening long-term outcomes.
Why we built our own rating system
We found that most investment rating tools fall into two categories:
- Marketing-driven ratings that often rely on simple star systems or broad labels. These can oversimplify complex strategies and sometimes reward short-term performance or fashionable styles rather than sustainable results.
- Manager-supplied narratives that depend heavily on how investment managers describe their own philosophy and process. While insightful, these can introduce bias and make objective comparisons difficult.
The core problem?
None of these approaches consistently answer the question that matters most:
“Is this investment delivering strong, reliable, risk-efficient outcomes compared to its true peers? “
That’s why we created the Intech Rating System.
What makes the Intech Rating System different
- It measures outcomes, not stories
- It compares investments fairly within their true peer groups
- It prioritises durability over short-term performance
- It emphasises risk-efficiency, not just returns
- It uses clear percentile scoring (0–100) for transparency
How this improves your portfolio
The Intech Rating System enhances every stage of our investment process — from selection and construction to ongoing monitoring. Every investment in the Intech Model Portfolio must pass our Performance Gate and demonstrate excellence across:
- Risk-efficiency
- Drawdown behaviour
- Return consistency
- Independent research ratings
- Our own qualitative assessment
Only those that meet our high standards on both quantitative and qualitative measures are included.
What this means for your July review
As we roll out the new system, you may see:
- Updates to some current holdings
- Replacement of lower-rated investments
- Refinements designed to improve long-term risk-adjusted performance
- Any necessary adjustments following the Federal Budget
Every change will be made with a single goal in mind: keeping your portfolio as strong and aligned with your objectives as possible.
We’re excited to share this with you
This has been a significant project — more than a year of research, testing, and refinement. We’re proud to now bring this higher level of rigour and objectivity to your investment management.
We look forward to walking through the specific updates with you during your July review. In the meantime, if you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Warm regards,
Chris & Mark
Intech Investment Management
