RECAP: 2018 FOX Autumn Global Investment Forum

CIO Panel: Preparing for Uncertainty 

 

Moderator:
David Toth, Managing Director, Family Office Exchange (pictured)

Panelists:
Lesley-Jane Dixon, SVP/CIO, Clark Enterprises, Inc.  
Joel Bosch, Controller, 42 North Partners LLC
Bradley Berger, President, Kompass Kapital Management LLC

Session Description: 

In this session, a panel of single-family office Chief Investment Officers  discussed how they are positioning the family portfolios. This session shared actionable investment suggestions as the CIOs prepare for the potential return of volatility and  explored how they are assessing risks and opportunities in an uncertain investment environment.

 

“The benefit of a Family Office is that you don’t  have to invest. You can sit out if the deal isn’t right."
Key Takeaways: 

  • Family Offices tend to think of asset allocation differently than institutional investors, and these panelists were no different. One family practices “thematic balance sheet deployment,” and the other two split buckets by private/direct and public.  

  • The purpose of the traditional marketable portfolio is to manage liquidity and fund private investments. Private investments are where the families are most interested and what they view as the primary long-term driver of value/return. 

  • Both families that have family members involved in investment decision-making seek unanimous decisions. For the third family office, the family is removed from the investment decision-making process, and the CEO is the primary decision-maker (with the investment team prior to the decision). In all three cases, it seemed that consensus across the board was more important than doing what might be quantitatively the ”right thing.” 

 

Session Recaps

Download a PDF version of these recaps here