Our Playbook

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Our Approach

Our approach integrates diversified private-led investments into custom portfolios and delivers a customized, one-stop, experience. Our tailored monitoring allows for reporting all assets in one easy-to-find place. Our strategic oversight and integration of financial aspects include tax coordination, asset protection, estate and heritage planning, charitable giving, income and growth-oriented public investments, private investments across private equity, real estate and private credit, and family bookkeeping.

How We Serve Families

We know that long-term success relies upon sound principles. Our first step is to establish your personalized Core Values Statement. It can be as simple or elaborate as you prefer, but the content will serve as a benchmark for the financial decisions that build toward your family heritage.

Every family is different, and blanket templates are insufficient. You can’t buy peace of mind off the rack. Your tailored investment plan must be aligned with your values, goals, and objectives across all market cycles. We build our service to suit each family’s unique needs, incorporating different combinations of the following:

Private & Public Investing

We develop custom portfolios crafted with private and public investments to meet personalized risk tolerance, income needs, time horizons, and objectives.

Established goals and objectives will help us balance this across five “buckets”: Growth, Fixed Income, Alternative Income, Cash, and Private Investments. In addition to exposure across all five, the portfolio will seek broad diversification by allocating multiple capital structures within different industries, sectors, managers, and asset classes.

Private Investing

Specialized advice and curated access to investing in private companies, real estate, and funds. By allocating 10-40% of assets to private opportunities, our objective is to achieve cash-flowing, equity-like returns from a diversified portfolio not correlated to the S&P 500. This investment preference is for less competitive lower-middle market deals or specific strategies that take advantage of tactical opportunities.

Public Investing

Here, we keep it simple. With respect to public equities (“stocks”), we prioritize two enduring factors in our selection: Dividend Growth and High, Consistent Returns on Invested Capital (ROIC). In isolation, these factors have an important common denominator: persistently high levels of free cash generation. We think a 30-40 stock portfolio of businesses that fit these criteria has a good chance of compounding at or above the common market proxy (the S&P 500) with the added tax benefit of owning individual securities.

A note on passive investing

The above approach is considered “actively managed.” It doesn’t replicate a common benchmark. Many Family Office clients have a preference for passive public equity exposure, which does replicate a common benchmark. We absolutely respect and happily accommodate this preference.

Commitment vs. Style Preference

It’s been our observation that neither a passive nor active approach will materially affect long-term goals and objectives as significantly as a steady commitment to stocks (i.e., steady allocation in times of greed and fear).

Flipping the Script on “Risk”

With risk—often equated to volatility— there can be reward. It’s the price of success, and all investments carry some level of uncertainty because nothing is guaranteed. In the last 100 years, despite 10 drawdowns of greater than 20%, the S&P 500 has returned about 10% annually. One dollar invested then would be worth almost $14,000 today. That is a “risk” we believe is worth taking.

Planning and Strategy

At CFO, we actively shepherd the initial and ongoing planning and structuring of your custom wealth plan. We manage your wealth complexity by working side-by-side with your outside advisors and holding them accountable. If your situation requires specialized expertise, we will facilitate engagements with select trust & estate professionals, tax professionals, insurance specialists, personal bill pay and bookkeeping business managers, and more.

Humility

Your priorities become our priorities, and we serve them as if they were our own. We have enough time-trusted experience to know that sometimes finding the “right” answers requires relentless pursuit. It’s a challenge that we look forward to achieving on your behalf.

Speak to An Advisor

All investments involve risks, including possible loss of principal. Stock prices fluctuate, sometimes rapidly and dramatically, due to factors affecting individual companies, particular industries or sectors, or general market conditions. For stocks paying dividends, dividends are not guaranteed, and can increase, decrease or be totally eliminated without notice. Fixed-income securities involve interest rate, credit, inflation, and reinvestment risks; and possible loss of principal. Foreign investments are subject to foreign withholding taxes and the risk of adverse changes in foreign regulations and involve currency risk. Private Funds are generally subject to various risk factors and liquidity constraints. Certain of these risks may include loss of all or a substantial portion of the investment due to leveraging, short-selling, or other speculative practices, lack of liquidity because of redemption terms and conditions and that there may not and will not be a secondary market for the fund, volatility of returns, restrictions on transferring interests in the fund, a potential lack of diversification, higher fees than mutual funds, lack of information regarding valuations and pricing. Diversification can reduce (but not eliminate) the risk of loss.