Monday
The week starts with an early breakfast meeting with our founding European client.
Our company takes a total balance sheet advisory approach, and for this client we are currently working on a significant M&A corporate finance opportunity.
We spend the morning updating him on the deal and planning for meetings later in the week with lending banks and institutional investors.
As a multi-family office that stewards all facets of our clients’ financial lives, one of our mandates is to source the best ideas across the investment management space.Later in the morning, we meet a large institutional prospect who is looking for a UK-based fixed income solution. We propose an opportunistic fixed income solution that involves a regulatory, Solvency II component. The dialogue emphasises the need for our type of independent advisory approach, even with the most sophisticated clients, where the only input is the client’s objectives and the output is an effective solution that addresses these.
The day ends with dinner in Mayfair with a trusted adviser to TwinFocus who has business in the US and Europe – it was a fun end to the day.
Tuesday
As a multi-family office that stewards all facets of our clients’ financial lives, one of our mandates is to source the best ideas across the investment management space. As part of that, we meet a UK-based seed VC fund, to whom we are considering allocating.
Our clients place a great deal of importance on direct deals, so this relationship would also allow us to invest on the high conviction opportunities in the tech space with a high-quality partner. That afternoon, we meet two major private banks, who we will consider as potential custodians of assets.
Our role at TwinFocus is to provide independent advice and partner with the banks for their custody, trading and flows capabilities. As such, we are agnostic as to the custodian, provided they meet certain regulatory and financial criteria.
Wednesday
We mark the middle of the week with an intense day focused on the corporate finance mandate for our founding client, which we prepared for on Monday. We conduct six meetings with leading financial institutions to begin discussions with respect to overall deal structure, as well as term sheet provisions.
We are focused on taking a long-term perspective beyond the here and now transaction, and being an adviser who can think outside-the-box in finding solutions, completely void of conflicts of interest.
Given our wider role, in addition to leading the acquisition and deal structure process, we will be advising on the pool of assets.
That evening, we have dinner at the Arts Club with the client to reflect and strategise.
Thursday
We start the day meeting with one of our core alternative fixed income managers in London.
We are considering a bespoke opportunistic credit strategy for a very specialist mandate to exploit one of our high-conviction European fixed income themes for earning an attractive yield, with forex hedging, as necessary.
We also meet an investment bank with expertise in the structured products space. With rising volatility and deep barrier protection, such products can be a useful component in portfolios for our London business.
We are designing products that are aligned to our global macro and capital markets outlook, and for global equity allocations that would complement our other equity exposures.
Friday
After a busy week, my partners from the US go home and I go with my family to Scotland.
Harinder Hundle is managing partner of multi-family office TwinFocus
