Types of Clients
HCO Private Wealth typically works with individual clients, trust accounts, and retirement plans. To pre-
serve the high level of attention and service provided to each client, HCO Private Wealth must necessarily
limit its number of clients. Accordingly, clients generally are required to establish household relationships
with investable assets of at least $500,000 or pay a minimum fee of $5,000 per year. Multiple accounts
within a household may be combined to meet this minimum. The partners of HCO Private Wealth are
allowed to waive this minimum under limited circumstances.
Due to the sophisticated nature of the strategies offered by HCO Private Wealth, the firm requires that
clients meet the legal definition of an Accredited Investor as defined by the U.S. Securities & Exchange
Commission under Regulation “D”. Under present standards, an Accredited Investor is defined as an in-
dividual with an income of over $200,000 or a joint couple with an income over $300,000 or a net worth
of over $1 million either individually or jointly with spouse. An investor’s primary residence cannot be
included for purposes of determining net worth and meeting the net worth requirement. The partners of
HCO Private Wealth are allowed to waive this minimum under limited circumstances.
Methods of Analysis, Investment Strategies, and Risk of Loss
WARNING: Investing in securities involves the risk of loss that clients should be prepared to bear.
HCO Private Wealth uses a goal-oriented approach to portfolio management. Each client’s asset alloca-
tion mixture is determined either as a result of a detailed financial planning process that determines the
rate of return necessary to fund a client’s goals or through a discussion with a firm partner concerning the
client’s goals, risk tolerance, investment experience, and financial condition. A client’s mix of stocks,
bonds, cash, real estate, and other alternative investments will depend on the client’s need for income
and growth as well as the client’s willingness to tolerate fluctuations in the value of the account (often
referred to as risk).
Once we determine a client’s ideal asset allocation mix, that mix serves as a guideline for the long-term
management of the account. The firm may deviate from this established mix based on economic or mar-
ket conditions such as perceived opportunities and/or concerns about market risk.
Individual stocks are selected, monitored, and retained using a quantitative factor-based model that uti-
lizes daily data inputs from independent third-party sources to screen and ranks issues based on their
attractiveness relative to other stocks in the monitored universe of roughly 2,200 securities.
Stocks in and of themselves represent ownership interests in publicly traded companies and as such ex-
pose the client to both the benefits and risks of ownership. Risks include business strategy risk, competi-
tion, consumer preferences, management risk, environmental risk, regulatory risk, legal risk, and financial
risk. Furthermore, stock values do not always track company values because stocks are traded in the
public marketplace and as such are subject to the laws of supply and demand, which at times, can cause
the value of a stock to fluctuate significantly.
Index Exchange Traded Funds (“ETFs”) are chosen for those clients that prefer a passive approach to in-
vestment management for some or all of their portfolio. Index ETFs are chosen based on liquidity and
cost. HCO uses style-based index funds for small accounts and sector-based index funds for larger ac-
counts or where the ability to tax-loss harvest a particular sector index might prove attractive.
Bonds are chosen for clients primarily as a source of income and to dampen portfolio volatility. Bonds are
chosen for clients based on HCO Private Wealth’s view on the future direction of interest rates, credit
conditions around the world, and the attractiveness of different types of bond instruments. Bonds are
subject to risks including reinvestment risk, interest rate risk, default risk, and liquidity risk. For the most
part, HCO Private Wealth pursues a total return strategy in the selection, monitoring, and retention of
bonds and does so through the use of Exchange Traded Funds, mutual funds, and individual bonds.
In addition to corporate, government, agency, mortgage-backed, inflation-protected, and municipal
bonds, HCO Private Wealth also offers a bond investment strategy we call “Strategic Bonds” which may
offer higher rates of return or income. Examples of Strategic Bond holdings include foreign bonds, bond
derivative products, high yield bonds, convertible bonds, and foreign bonds. Purchasing non-traditional
types of bond instruments exposes clients to additional risks such as default risk, corruption risk, counter-
party risk, currency risk, interest rate risk, and political risk.
If the firm chooses to invest in Real Estate Investment Trusts (“REITs”), the firm uses quantitative analysis
to select securities that offer a favorable combination of income and growth potential. Third-party reports
from independent analysts are used to validate or confirm selections, but the primary selection tool uti-
lized is quantitative analysis.
Alternative strategies are implemented through outside money managers that have unique expertise in a
given strategy such as long/short, merger arbitrage, hedged equity, trend following, global macro, and so
forth. In adopting these strategies, the firm seeks to reduce the overall risk of a client portfolio rather
than pursue more aggressive “return enhancement” strategies. Alternative strategies are typically im-
plemented using mutual funds or hedge funds that may carry additional costs beyond the fees charged
by HCO Private Wealth. The strategies used by the firm typically offer a risk profile that is somewhere
between stocks and bonds, though each strategy is different and should be evaluated both independently
...