The discretionary investment of trust assets is probably the single greatest area of difficulty for trustees. As noted, trustees have a duty to preserve trust assets for the beneficiaries and will therefore tend to favour conservative investments with appropriate returns. It is common practice to engage third party banks or investment managers to look after substantial trust portfolios but it always desirable to have an agreed investment strategy and for this to be monitored closely and on a timely basis by trustees. Issues include:

Appropriate investment benchmarks to use

Actual adherence to a laid-down stratgey by investment managers

Comparative performance compared with alternative strategies

Liquidity and safety of investments

Costs of investment management and dealing