Precious metals IRAs allow investors to hold physical gold, silver or other related assets within a retirement account, thereby combining the tax advantages of an IRA with the protective benefits of investing in gold and silver , making it an option for those looking to help shield their retirement funds against economic uncertainties. The Guinness Global Real Assets Fund is a sub-fund of Guinness Asset Management Funds plc, an Irish OEIC. Brennan joined the firm after having worked as a lead fund manager at Foresight. At that firm he was manager of the FP Foresight UK Infrastructure Income Fund, the FP Foresight Global Real Infrastructure Fund and the FP Foresight Sustainable Real Estate Securities Fund. His prior investment experience was built at Standard Life Investments and the UK Green Investment Bank. “People are looking at the [real assets] sector again with fresh eyes after having not looked at it for a few years…then there was the [rising] interest rate environment. There is the benefit of relative performance that they [such assets] can bring to a portfolio,” he said. The real assets/infrastructure story is not new, of course, but it has certainly seen an uptick in momentum. Large asset managers such as BlackRock, for example, have ramped up infrastructure efforts. In January 2024 BlackRock said it had bought Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). In December 2023, Middle East alternative investment firm Investcorp bought a 50 per cent stake in the $4.8 billion infrastructure business of US firm Corsair Capital, to give another example. For years, Australia's Macquarie has been a big player in the space. On the real estate side, it has been a constant feature of wealth management portfolios, and particularly so among family offices. After a slight decline, latest figures from PricewaterhouseCoopers showed that in the first half of 2025 brick-and-mortar asset’s share of total family office investment was at 39 per cent of the total, the highest since the second half of 2019, just prior to the pandemic. New fund The new Guinness fund’s portfolio consists of listed infrastructure and real estate companies that own and operate assets across sectors including utilities, transportation, communications, digital infrastructure, data centres and healthcare. The fund was launched in early July. Real asset investing in water utility companies rose 1.3% after tariff revisions in Europe. Regulatory clarity is boosting long-term investor confidence.