THE STEWARDSHIP MINDSET
Stewardship, not ownership — this idea defines the role that we encourage clients to take regarding their own wealth. As the saying goes, "you can't take it with you". Life is awesomely fragile. Laureate Wealth Management is passionately committed to stewarding the financial legacies of its clients for future generations.
Through a network of personal relationships with institutional investors and family offices across the country, we are able to source additional research and investment opportunities not available through standard retail investment channels. In turn, clients of Laureate are given the opportunity to participate in these opportunities if/as appropriate for their own portfolio needs. The process of finding, vetting, offering, and maintaining these investment opportunities thru this network of relationships is intense and time consuming. Face to face meetings, hotels, and seemingly endless airline miles… these are the ingredients of our stewardship mindset.
AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH
Productive long-term portfolio performance is driven by a combination of proper asset allocation and active manager selection in both the traditional and alternative asset classes. Diversifying investments across asset classes has historically produced better risk-adjusted performance for the overall portfolio. Unfortunately, as worldwide markets have become more interconnected, an investor's ability to diversify using publicly traded securities has been diminished. Hedge funds, private equity funds, and private real estate transactions can provide the attractive idiosyncratic risk/return characteristics that add critical diversification to a portfolio. Regarding manager selection, Laureate Wealth believes that many of the best managers across these traditional and non-traditional asset classes work outside the scope of the large investment institutions. While these managers are harder to source, they can provide great benefit to client portfolios.
A CLEARLY DEFINED PATH
Investing is difficult, and investment discipline is even more challenging. With this in mind, it is critical for investors to develop a clear investment plan in order to immunize themselves from the vicissitudes of the market. Without a clear plan of action, human behavioral factors can negatively influence the performance of a portfolio.
Laureate Wealth's approach requires clients to know their investments and understand how their portfolio is constructed. There is great temptation for investors to run in the herd. Brokers and large institutions often tend to direct clients down the beaten path. Laureate Wealth directs its clients to diversify risk factors and build a portfolio that is substantially different from the market, which is consequently away from the herd.