Approach
A method, written down
We do not have a market view we sell to everybody. We have a process that produces a different portfolio for each mandate — and a document explaining why yours looks the way it does.
Philosophy
What we believe about investing
- Long-term thinking
- A portfolio should be designed for the decade, not the quarter. We choose a horizon with you at the outset and then judge every decision against it. Short-term performance is reported, but it is not the scoreboard.
- Diversification that means something
- Real diversification is about the drivers of return, not the number of line items. We spread capital across growth, interest rates, inflation and liquidity so that no single economic outcome determines the result.
- Risk awareness before return targets
- We set an explicit risk budget first — how much decline you can tolerate, and for how long — then build the highest-returning portfolio that respects it. Reversing that order is how people end up selling at the bottom.
- Research over narrative
- Every position must be defensible from evidence rather than a story. We keep a written research file per holding and revisit the original thesis on a schedule, not when the price moves.
- Disciplined decision-making
- Rules are decided in calm conditions and followed in difficult ones. Rebalancing bands, position limits and sell criteria are all pre-committed, which removes improvisation from the moments that punish it most.
- Client alignment
- We are paid one published advisory fee. No commissions, no product placement, no revenue from third parties. If a low-cost index fund is the right answer, that is what you get.
Process
Four steps, repeated
The sequence never changes. What changes is what we learn each time round.
- 01
Understand
We map the capital: what it is for, when it is needed, what is already committed, and what a bad year would actually mean for you. The output is a written mandate — objectives, horizon, constraints and risk budget — that we both sign off before any money moves.
- 02
Research
We test which exposures the mandate genuinely needs. That means examining how asset classes have behaved together across different regimes, stress-testing the mix against inflation and rate shocks, and rejecting anything whose role in the portfolio we cannot state in one sentence.
- 03
Construct
We build the allocation, choose implementation, and set the rules that will govern it: rebalancing bands, liquidity reserves, tax placement and the conditions under which we would sell. Everything is documented alongside its reasoning.
- 04
Review
We meet quarterly and re-underwrite annually. The question is never only how the portfolio performed, but whether the mandate still describes your life. When it does not, the portfolio changes — not the other way round.
Risk
How we talk about risk
Risk is not volatility alone. It is the chance of arriving at a date you care about with less than you needed. We describe it in three ways so it stays concrete.
| Depth | How far a portfolio could fall in a severe market, expressed in currency rather than percentage points. |
|---|---|
| Duration | How long recovery has historically taken for a comparable mix, so the wait is expected rather than alarming. |
| Shortfall | The probability of missing a specific, dated objective — the only risk measure that maps directly onto a decision. |
Risk framing shown here is illustrative template content. It is not a forecast and not a guarantee of any outcome.
Perspective
Cycles are the terrain, not the plan
We do not attempt to time the phases below. We name them so that a portfolio's behaviour is legible when it happens, and so that a rebalance in a contraction feels like the plan rather than a panic.
- 01Expansion
- Earnings rise, credit is easy, volatility is low.
- 02Peak
- Confidence broadens, leverage builds, breadth narrows.
- 03Contraction
- Correlations converge, liquidity thins.
- 04Recovery
- Prices turn while sentiment is still poor.
See how this becomes a portfolio
The strategies pages show the five components we assemble mandates from, each with its purpose, philosophy and risk note.