Investment Strategy & Oversight

Stendal defines the asset classes appropriate for the family's mandate, return target, liquidity needs, and time horizon, including any allocation to alternatives the family wishes to consider.

Stendal monitors the family's actual asset allocation against the target across all managers and strategies, surfacing drift for rebalancing decisions at the quarterly meeting.

Stendal evaluates tactical shifts proposed by the family's investment managers against the IPS and the cross-portfolio picture, then signs off or pushes back on the manager's behalf.

Stendal assesses where each asset should sit (trust, holdco, personally) for combined tax, creditor-protection, and succession purposes, then coordinates movement of assets with counsel and accountants.

Stendal assesses jurisdiction-of-holding decisions for the family's investment assets, balancing Canadian, U.S., and any other jurisdiction's tax and reporting regimes.

Stendal aligns the portfolio's liquidity profile with the family's annual spending and planned capital outflows, ensuring sufficient near-cash to cover 12 months without forced selling.

Stendal forecasts the family's liquidity needs against each illiquid manager's redemption schedule and lock-up windows, so the family is never surprised by a redemption that cannot be funded on the timeline required.

Stendal sources, evaluates, and selects investment managers against the family's mandate, conducts ongoing due diligence on existing managers, and recommends terminations when conviction breaks.

Stendal monitors cash positions across all entities in the family's structure weekly, surfaces idle balances for redeployment, and flags deficits before they become overdrafts.

Stendal sets the family's fixed-income policy with the appointed managers (allowable issuers, duration target, credit-quality floor), monitors exposures, and reviews against changing rate and credit environments.

Stendal coordinates the family's cross-border cash positions and unhedged FX exposure across personal accounts, holdcos, and trusts, reducing transaction friction and unintended currency risk.

Stendal sets the FX hedging policy with the family's appointed managers (which exposures to hedge, what instruments, what proportion), monitors the running exposures, and reviews policy against the family's risk appetite.

Stendal negotiates on the family's behalf with general partners, asset managers, custodians, banks, and insurance counterparties to secure access to alternative products on improved terms, reduce fees, and capture institutional pricing across recurring relationships. Reviews run on a defined annual cadence rather than reactively.

Stendal drafts and maintains the family's Investment Policy Statement covering return objective, risk tolerance, asset-class ranges, manager-selection criteria, liquidity rules, and rebalancing discipline, reviewed annually.

Stendal produces quarterly capital market assumptions (expected returns, volatilities, correlations by asset class) to use as inputs for portfolio construction, rebalancing, and the family's financial-independence model.

When the family changes investment strategies or terminates a manager, Stendal develops the tax-efficient transition plan covering staged sales, harvest opportunities, and timing relative to year-end positions.

Stendal designs the year's tax-minimization strategies for the portfolio (loss harvesting, capital-gains planning, in-kind transfers between entities) and coordinates execution with the family's licensed investment advisors.

Stendal evaluates each investment manager against their stated benchmark, peer group, and the family's mandate quarterly, surfacing conviction-eroding patterns before they become losses.

Stendal calculates risk-adjusted returns across the portfolio (Sharpe, Sortino, drawdown, volatility-adjusted return) so the family understands return quality, not just absolute return.

Stendal produces a consolidated quarterly performance report across all managers, accounts, and entities, presenting one number for the portfolio rather than fragmented per-manager statements.