Aurels Conseil · Fractional CIO
Independent investment management
An independent view, separate from your bank, of the allocation of your assets: before every decision, you know what your estate really earns you and what it costs you.
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Independent investment governance, serving your interests alone.
Your bank holds your assets, advises you on their allocation and receives, on some of the products it recommends, commissions or retrocessions. None of this is illegal, nor necessarily done badly. But in this arrangement, nobody has the sole task of checking that the advice received serves your interests first.
Economic theory has given this configuration a name. For Jensen and Meckling (1976), as soon as a principal entrusts a task to an agent whose interests may diverge from their own, and who knows more than they do, delegation carries a cost: agency costs. The framework accuses no one; it simply shows that the incentive structure does not, by itself, protect the client.
Consider an entrepreneur who has just sold their company and splits the proceeds between two banks. Each proposes a “prudent” allocation. Neither sees that the two combined overexpose them to the same sector and the same currency, nor that part of the funds selected pays a retrocession to whoever recommends them.
Our role is to bring all your assets together, at regular intervals, into a single reading, however many banks are involved, and to check three things:
- the return actually achieved, net of all fees;
- the consistency of the risk taken with the objectives you have set;
- the retrocessions that were not clearly disclosed to you.
You receive a written arbitration opinion before any decision. Your assets remain with the bank of your choice, which continues to hold them and execute your orders: we place no orders and never touch your funds.
Between two meetings, monitoring tools track your allocation and flag any deviation. Their role ends at the alert: every arbitration remains a documented judgement, made by a person you know.
Independent second opinion on the allocation
On an investable estate of five million euros, a thirty basis point reduction in the total cost, management fees and retrocessions combined, represents an annual gain of around fifteen thousand euros. The calculation is simple; its significance less so: this gap becomes visible as soon as an independent third party compares all your statements. It is an order of magnitude intended to frame the stakes, not a promise of results.
Governance of wealth arbitration
A periodic meeting, separate from any custody relationship, makes it possible to settle allocation decisions before they are executed by the bank or the incumbent manager. It complements your usual exchanges with the account-keeping institution: a documented checkpoint where your interest becomes once again the sole criterion of the decision.
Selective use of external expertise
Depending on the nature of the file, a lawyer, an actuary or an independent analyst may be called upon for a specific question. Each is paid for a documented and defined service, at fees fixed in advance and independent of the portfolio’s value: their only interest is the soundness of the opinion given.
Shared-time leadership and governance
The same logic, for two other roles
Independent director
An independent voice on the board of directors, entirely focused on the interest of the company and its shareholders.
External consultant
An experienced perspective for the time of a specific question, with a written deliverable and an agreed duration.
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