When West is not best.

(From Private Banker International)

Alternative investments, emerging markets and other specialist funds should feature strongly in the asset allocations of UK investors, Baring Private Clients currently recommends. Martin Owens reports UK private clients aiming to maximise capital growth on a ten-to-15 year time horizon should be investing as much as half of their portfolios outside Europe and North America, with Asian, emerging markets and specialist funds in areas such as mining, insurance and technology making up the balance.

The view is held by Baring Private Clients, a unit of [pounds sterling]18.5 billion ($33.5 billion) money manager Baring Asset Management (BAM), the subsidiary of global banking group ING.

Many British investors who are looking at such ten-plus year time- frames are typically under 45 years old and more than 20 years away from retirement, but are unaware just how much of their assets need …