The conduct standard

How we work

Four commitments and five values, each written with the behaviour it demands and the specific failure that breaks it. They are built into how the group is put together, so they hold when the market makes them inconvenient.

Start a conversation About the group

The four commitments

Our own capital committed alongside yours

The number said first, in plain figures

Decades held through the cycles

The licence sets what we may offer

Four commitments

A commitment that names only the virtue is decoration. Each of these names what it demands of us and the specific thing that would count as breaking it, so it survives a performance review rather than a brochure.

We commit our own capital

We hold what we recommend, in the same strategies, on the same terms and at the same time. Group capital goes in before client capital, and it stays in.

Recommending a strategy the group declines to hold itself.

We say the number

Fees, holdings and conflicts appear as plain figures in the first document you receive. You never have to ask for them, and you never find them in a footnote.

A fee disclosed late. A conflict raised after signing.

We think in decades

We hold through cycles and decline capital that arrives with a short horizon. A mandate we cannot serve on your timeline is a mandate we turn down.

Taking money we would have to trade against its own horizon.

The licence sets the line

Each entity offers only what its registration permits. Where a question belongs with a different entity, we say so and make the introduction.

Stretching a product to fit a client. Using the word bank.

Five values, and the failure that breaks each one

The same test applied to the values. If nobody can be held to a value, it is a slogan.

ValueWhat it demandsViolated by

Own it like it is ours Group capital sits alongside client capital. Recommending what we decline to hold.

Say the number Fees, holdings and conflicts in plain figures. A fee disclosed in a footnote.

Patience is a position We hold through cycles. Taking a mandate we cannot serve in time.

Discretion is absolute Client identity stays inside the mandate. Naming a client to win the next one.

The licence sets the line Each entity offers only what it may. Blurring the pillars in marketing.

Saying the number is the commitment most often promised and least often kept. This is what it means here.

Every figure that describes your money appears in the first document you receive, in the same format every period, whether the period was good or bad. Nothing that costs you money is disclosed anywhere smaller than the rest of the page.

Ask us anything

What appears, always

Every holdingNamed, weighted and dated. No aggregated "other".
Every feeManagement, performance and anything charged to the strategy.
Every conflictIncluding exposure to companies inside the group.
Group capital committedHow much of our own money sits in the same strategy.

Stated in plain figures, at the same type size as everything else.

How a mandate runs

Four stages, and you get a written answer at the second one whether or not anything proceeds.

One conversation

Thirty minutes, no deck. Mostly us asking what the capital has to do, over what period, and what would make us the wrong group for it.

A written view

What we would do, what we would not, and whether we are the right group. In writing, either way, whether or not it becomes a mandate.

The mandate

Terms, fees and the conflicts we can foresee, stated before anything is signed. Group capital committed alongside yours.

Reporting that does not hide

Every holding listed, every fee stated, every conflict disclosed, in the same format every period so comparison is possible.

What we decline

Saying what we turn down is more useful than listing what we accept. These are the ones we say no to often enough that they are worth publishing.

Tell us what you need

Capital that arrives with a horizon shorter than the strategy it is going into.
Mandates that would put us in a conflict we cannot disclose or price.
Anything requiring us to imply a return, a floor or a protection of principal.
Work that belongs with a different entity in the group, or with nobody in it.
A client who wants us to name another client to prove ourselves.

Start a conversation

One conversation, no pressure. We will tell you what we would do with your capital, and what we would not.