One of the most significant services provided by ICG pertains to manager due diligence. An enormous amount of time is spent by the investment team at ICG in creating the "pool" of managers with whom we recommend our clients invest. We conduct extensive qualitative and quantitative analysis on hundreds of money managers each year, both traditional and alternative. However, only those meeting our most stringent requirements make our list. (All investment managers that we recommend to clients are evaluated on more than 140 criteria.)

Ongoing diligence is carried out on potential and existing managers. While ICG is headquartered in Los Angeles and the majority of manager meetings occur there, we also conduct numerous manager meetings on our frequent trips to New York, Chicago, San Francisco and other locations globally. Due to our extensive network both within the manager community and across the financial services industry, we are consistently able to discover exciting new managers and strategies to incorporate into client portfolios.

Larger consulting models and traditional brokerage firms tend to separate the roles of manager due diligence and portfolio construction. At ICG, the investment professionals who carry out the manager due diligence are the same as those involved in the construction and implementation of client portfolios. We feel that this allows us to make more informed decisions when deciding which managers to recommend to client portfolios.

We build client portfolios from a risk perspective, and one of the areas in which we differentiate ourselves is our ability to source managers that have the skill and experience to effectively control volatility in their portfolios. We strive to discover such managers, as this implies that their performance is driven more by security selection than by the market in general, which managers cannot control.

Many of the investment managers that we identify as truly "best in class" for our clients are also capacity-constrained and therefore tend to deny access to larger consulting platforms. We have found, however, that our smaller size and long-term client retention, along with our intellectual understanding of alternative strategies, attracts top quality managers and allows us to participate where larger or less sophisticated rivals cannot.

Once managers are identified, we are often able to negotiate fees and other terms (such as liquidity) whose benefits are passed directly on to clients. We receive NO compensation whatsoever from managers to whom we allocate assets.

ICG reconciles each client account on a monthly basis and delivers a detailed monthly performance summary segmented by individual manager. This enables our analysts to check that managers remain compliant and helps to ensure that the client's investment policy statement remains valid and that its objectives are being met.

ICG has an investment committee comprised of the firm's senior investment professionals plus our chief compliance officer. The committee generally meets once a week in our offices. During these meetings the committee discusses existing and prospective managers, market themes, and developments that might impact client portfolios.