The rolling farmland of north Oxfordshire is the last place you would expect to find a successful investment firm making a return on more than £200m of its clients' money.

Tony Yarrow started Wise Investment in 1992 in his basement and now employs 20 people with offices in Reading and the former Tom Walkinshaw Racing offices near Enstone.

One of those staff is his son Hugh, who has moved back home after more than seven years in the City with investment manager Rathbones. Hugh, 30, returned just after the birth of his first child and is also excited about the launch of a new fund, Evenlode Income.

"Wise Investment already manages three funds so it is a strong steady base to operate from," he said.

"We look at shares as chunks of real companies, not pieces of paper, and we want to be confident they will be around for a while, offering real stakes in real businesses."

Coming from managing funds worth more than a billion pounds at Rathbones to starting a fund from scratch is quite a change for Hugh but the turmoil in the City convinced him it was the right time to move.

"From an investment perspective 2008 was awful and there was pretty much no hiding place in the stock market," he explained.

"It was the worst downturn since the Second World War, a once in a generation event.

"But it means I have seen a complete stock market cycle, from the bursting of the tech bubble when I first started, to the situation now. I've seen the City from the inside and understand how the investment world works."

Hugh brings that experience to Wise Investment and Evenlode Income will be a 'sleep-at-night' fund, investing in a mix of up to 30 strong firms that are currently under-valued. Hugh expects an income of 4.5 per cent for customers who should be looking at a three to five-year span for their money. He and other family members will be investing their own money in the fund.

Getting away from the hype and trends of the City will also allow him the freedom to develop a fund that delivers long term growth for clients.

"In the City, fund managers are being benchmarked against various indices over very short terms," Tony, 58, explained.

This means decisions have to be made to satisfy those short-term targets when different decisions may deliver greater gains in the longer term.

From thr beautiful and peaceful location at Enstone the hustle and bustle of the City is far away. In fact, with the blessing of the current landlord, Tony and Hugh will be creating a buzz of a different kind by keeping bees in a quiet corner of the estate. But they are still plugged in to the markets.

Tony proved to be right on the ball when it came to predicting the upturn in the stock market.

On March 9, his blog on the company website was headed: All the Signs of a Major Turning Point and, sure enough, the very next day the bull run began.

"In 2009, if you had the idea that stocks were cheap and would be going up then you will have made money.

“If you thought the world was going to hell in a hand-cart and the best thing to do would be to get out of the markets then you would have missed the best opportunity for years."

Predicting the future is a tricky skill and no-one would ever claim they have it mastered. But the father and son team have clear ideas about the way they feel the future of finance will develop.

"When I started in 1984 there was virtually no regulation, no Financial Service Authority," said Tony.

"What regulation has tried to do is make financial services as professional as possible, with charges as low as possible and explanations as clear as possible."

Tony believes customers will demand openness and simplicity. He also points to the pension problem — an ageing population with fewer workers' contributions to pay for their old age.

He said: "No-one wants that liability, so it will be up to individuals to provide safety nets for themselves and we (the financial services industry) will have to try and provide acceptable ways for people to save that are cheap, simple to understand and aren't too risky."

Hugh echoes this need for simplicity and transparency in financial products and thinks the whole market system will go down that road.

He added: "The financial industry really plays a very simple role in the economy — it provides a bridge between individual savers and businesses that need capital. Looking at the credit bubble that recently burst, there was a lot of activity that had no real value."

"I believe we will return to a simpler world where banks will simply take money and lend it to people."

Name: Wise Investment Established: 1992

Director: Tony Yarrow Number of staff: 20 Funds under management: More than £200m

Contact: 01608 678277 Web: www.wiseinvestment.co.uk