We are paid out of the gain, or not at all.
Most advice is billed as a percentage of what you hold, so the invoice arrives whether the position made you anything or not. Ours is a share of what the portfolio gains. Here is that share, what it applies above, what happens when it goes the other way, and every cost here that is not ours.
When it goes against you
The case that mattersNothing at all
Any adviser can make a good period sound attractive. What separates fee models is the other case, so it is stated here rather than in a footnote. Investing puts your capital at risk: a portfolio can be worth less than you put into it, and no fee structure changes that.
What stops a share of the gain becoming a reason to gamble
- 01
High-water mark
A fall has to be recovered in full before the share applies again, so the same ground is never charged for twice and a loss cannot turn into a fee-earning opportunity.
Yes. A fall must be recovered before the share applies again
- 02
You place every trade
The hard limit on any incentive we might have. Nothing reaches your portfolio unless you personally put it there, so a recommendation you are not comfortable with simply never happens.
- 03
Written risk limits
A share of the gain is an incentive, and an incentive needs a boundary. Your risk limits are agreed in writing before any advice is given, and we advise inside them.
What would we have cost you?
Move the two figures. Everything else is subtraction. We take 10% of what your money gained and nothing at all if it did not.
- Your gain
- €20'000
- Our share, 10%
- €2'000
Nothing gained, so nothing to pay. The mark stays where it is, and the share starts again only above it.
The portfolio is below what went in, so there would be nothing to pay — and nothing to pay on the way back up either. A fall has to be recovered in full before the share applies again, so the same ground is never charged for twice.
Broker and platform costs are yours and are not in this figure, because they are not ours to take. Investing puts your capital at risk: this works out a fee, it does not predict a return.
The same rule, drawn
Only the shaded part is chargedSchematic, not a performance record. No figure on this chart is a return, and nothing here is a claim about what any portfolio will do. It shows one thing only: below the highest figure your portfolio has reached we are paid nothing, however long that takes, and above it we are paid a share of the difference.
The terms in full
All seven, one size- Our share
- 10% of the gainTaken from the gain, and from nothing else.
- When there is no gain
- Nothing at allNo management fee, no retainer, no minimum invoice. A period that produces nothing produces no bill.
- Fixed fees
- Nothing. The share of the gain is the whole of itNothing is charged for onboarding, reporting, meetings or leaving.
- Minimum portfolio
- NoneThere is no size below which we will not talk to you.
- Hurdle
- None. The share applies to the whole of the gainThe share is not held back until some threshold return is cleared. It applies from the first euro of gain.
- Withdrawals and top-ups
- Taking money out does not lower it. Paying money in raises it by the amount you paidThe mark follows your money in one direction only. Take €20'000 out of a portfolio that has reached €120'000 and the mark stays at €120'000: climbing from €100'000 back to €120'000 costs you nothing, because you reached that figure once already and paid on it once already. Pay €20'000 in and the mark rises to €140'000, because money you deposited is not money we made you. Most firms lower the mark when you withdraw. This one does not, and that is a deliberate choice in your favour.
- High-water mark
- Yes. A fall must be recovered before the share applies againThe share is measured from the highest figure your portfolio has reached, not from wherever it happens to sit today. Say €100'000 falls to €80'000 and then climbs back to €100'000: we are paid nothing on that recovery, because you have not gained anything — you are back where you started. The share resumes only above €100'000. It means the same ground is never charged for twice.
What that adds up to
Put the seven together and the arrangement is simple to check against your own statement. Nothing is charged unless your portfolio is worth more than it has ever been worth, and then only a tenth of the amount above that figure. No management charge, no retainer, no minimum, nothing for onboarding and nothing for leaving. A firm billing a percentage of your holdings charges you through a fall, through a flat period and through the recovery afterwards. We are paid in one case only.
The trade-off is real and it is ours: in a long flat stretch we earn nothing at all. That is the arrangement working as intended, not a problem with it.
Third-party payments
Whether a product provider or platform pays us anything in connection with what we recommend. In Switzerland this is the single most useful question you can put to anyone advising you, ourselves included.
Whatever an adviser's answer is, it should be a written policy applying to every client and every instrument, not a matter settled case by case. Ours is stated identically here and in our conflicts of interest policy, and any divergence between those two pages would itself be the answer.
Costs that are not ours
- 01
Broker and platform charges
Custody, account and transaction charges set by the platform you chose and paid to it. We receive no part of them, and nothing for sending you there.
- 02
Costs inside the instruments
The ongoing charges of any fund or product you hold. Deducted inside the instrument, which is exactly why they are easy to miss when comparing advisers.
- 03
Taxes and duties
Swiss stamp duty, foreign withholding, and income or wealth tax as it applies to you. Set by law and unaffected by who advises you.
If a number here rules us out, better now than after two meetings.
That is why this page exists, and why it sits before the conversation rather than after it.