We help our clients define and articulate their investment goals and objectives, ensure that they are reasonable and achievable, and implement appropriate risk parameters. We have created specific policies, procedures, and tools to facilitate the development and review of our clients’ investment policy documents.

We have a global view of the investment markets, and we take a strategic, long-term approach to asset allocation, while also considering current investment themes and market influences. We believe that risk is just as important as return. As such, we define and quantify the potential risks associated with achieving various levels of return as part of our asset allocation process.

Our proprietary modeling tool - Dynamic Financial Analysis (DFA) - uses Monte Carlo simulations to assess the likelihood of meeting investment objectives in various time periods and market environments.  While traditional mean-variance optimization models define risk as standard deviation only, our model gives us the ability to optimize portfolios using different definitions of risk, and also allows for "skewness" of investment returns; providing a more realistic picture of potential worst-case scenarios.  This helps our clients determine the level of risk that is most comfortable for them, and ultimately, the most appropriate portfolio structure that reflects their preferences.  DFA also helps us optimize after-tax returns for taxable portfolios. 

We have our own proprietary manager database which we supplement with other outside sources to identify and verify information on investment management organizations. Our manager due diligence process includes an intricate assessment of the manager’s quantitative statistics such as performance, risk, and correlation measures, as well as our qualitative assessment of the firm, their team, and their investment philosophy, process and disciplines.

We consider various factors during the implementation process, such as the appropriateness of active versus passive management, the use of core versus style-specific strategies, the implications of concentrated versus broadly diversified approaches, and the optimal number and types of managers to represent each asset class.

We collect data on each aspect of our clients’ portfolios, calculate investment returns, reconcile returns and market values, and compare results to meaningful benchmarks and peer groups. Our proprietary performance reporting tool is maintained by our internal technology staff, and gives us the ultimate flexibility to customize reports for our clients.

We review each client’s investment policy, investment strategy and portfolio mix as part of our comprehensive and customized risk management process. We regularly review portfolio investments to ensure that client objectives, preferences and constraints are being met.

A disciplined rebalancing program is crucial to the success of any long-term investment program. When asset classes move toward the outer limits of their allowable ranges, we suggest a course of action that carefully considers costs while taking advantage of near-term market dislocations that allow for opportune entry and exit points.

We look at risk from several lenses, and take many factors into consideration – including volatility, liquidity, diversification, transparency, leverage, and revenue and spending risks. We discuss risk and its implications on the investment program throughout the entire portfolio construction process, but even more importantly, we monitor and evaluate the investment program’s adherence to its risk budget as part of our ongoing oversight efforts.