Tag: #reporting
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The Case for Investment Transparency in Philanthropy
Investments often represent the majority of a foundation’s assets, yet they remain one of the least visible parts of how philanthropic capital is governed. While grant making is typically well documented and publicly shared. Investment decisions, such as who makes them, how they’re made, and what they aim to achieve, are often opaque. This gap
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Understanding What You Really Pay: Helping Investors See the Whole Picture
When investors divide their wealth among several advisors, it often becomes difficult to get a clear picture of how much they’re really paying in fees. That was the situation for one of our client’s holding companies, which had split approximately $100 million across three investment advisors — each responsible for a “low,” “medium,” or “high”
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Beyond the 5% Hurdle: How Wealthy Families Can Benchmark More Effectively
Benchmarking is one of the trickiest parts of portfolio reporting for wealthy families. While it might seem straightforward at first to compare performance against a benchmark. Some benchmarks are obvious such as the S&P 500 for US stocks. Other simple hurdles like CPI plus 4% or a fixed 5% return don’t offer a fair comparison
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Active Returns, Benchmarks, and the Truth About Performance
Many investors describe their portfolio performance in raw returns, like, “my portfolio made 15% last year” or “my portfolio gained $300,000”. While such statements may be true, they don’t tell us the whole story. And cannot tell us whether results have been good or bad. Since, what if the average return was 20% compared to
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Bringing the Portfolio Into Focus
Step 2 – If You Can’t See It, You Can’t Manage It After setting a clear investment strategy with the family, the next question was straightforward, but daunting: What exactly are we working with? The family’s assets were spread across three different investment advisors, each using their own custodians, platforms, and reporting systems. There was
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Behind the Reports: How We Set Up Addepar
At Markdale, we believe in meeting you where you are—and organizing your financial life so it’s easy to understand and manage. That’s why we use Addepar as the foundation for our reporting. But before we can generate beautiful reports and dashboards, there’s some behind-the-scenes work that happens first. Here’s how it works: 1. We start
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Managing Multiple Investment Managers: Best Practices for Efficiency and Clarity
Diversification with Purpose Diversifying your portfolio by asset class and investment manager is a sound strategy. It spreads risk and provides exposure to various management styles and market perspectives. However, many investors inadvertently over-diversify within the same asset class. For instance, having multiple managers handling Canadian equities can lead to inefficiencies and hidden risks. Strategic
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Top 10 Reports Our Clients Are Using Right Now
Understanding how to evaluate your portfolio and make informed decisions requires access to the right tools. Below, we highlight the top 10 reports that our clients rely on, from evaluating manager performance to understanding asset allocations. Each report provides critical insights into different aspects of investment strategy and risk management. 1. Manager Evaluation What it
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Customized Reports Tailored to Your Specific Needs
If you regularly report to SHARE Canada, you’re familiar with their specific requirements for a detailed list of holdings, including security ISINs and quantities. This post describes how we leverage Addepar to create customized reports tailored to investors with shareholder advocates. Manually pulling this data together is not only time-consuming, but it also introduces room
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How to Evaluate Investment Managers: A Guide to Making Informed Choices
When choosing an investment manager, many investors rely on personal connections. Someone they know, like, or trust. Often, these managers are passed down through generations of family, creating a sense of familiarity. While this desire for comfort is understandable, it can lead to a lack of objective evaluation. Potentially, risking your financial future. Some investors