We firmly believe that over time the best offense is a good defense. While we always strive to take advantage of market dislocations and generate alpha for our clients, we are above all students of diversification. The investment team at ICG is deeply experienced: we have spent more than 20 years formulating investment policies, recommending money managers, constructing individually customized portfolios, and analyzing investment performance for our clients.

As your “Outsourced CIO” the objective of ICG is to improve the performance of your portfolio based on your individual criteria: tolerance for risk, investment time horizon, preferences for asset classes and manager styles, income requirements, and any subjective or objective needs that must be addressed.

In our experience a well-conceived investment plan consistently applied over time should enhance investment returns. We help clients to formulate a customized investment policy statement from their responses to a detailed and confidential questionnaire. This policy defines the responsibilities of trustees, managers, consultants, and all other parties servicing the account; it is the cornerstone of the entire investment process. Maintaining policy asset allocation targets via periodic portfolio rebalancing is a crucial part of the investment process, and has generally been accretive to the overall performance of client portfolios.

We segment world capital markets into distinct and identifiable asset classes and analyze “statistically correct” solutions with clients to find the best numeric translation of their investment objectives. From these, and with our counsel, a client selects the set of divergent styles that best protect portfolio value and capture returns given their investment goals and tolerance for risk identified in the investment policy statement.

We will periodically perform new asset allocation studies for clients. The frequency with which this is done depends on a number of possible factors such as:

• A change of circumstance concerning the client's goals such as; risk tolerance, return expectations, or income requirements.
• A material change in the size of the client's portfolio (meaningful contribution or withdrawal from the portfolio).
• A meaningful change in the way managers' portfolios correlate with one another.
• Significant market fluctuations and/or dislocations.

These studies are part of our retainer services. We never charge clients additional fees to complete studies. Furthermore, we review portfolios every month and speak with clients regularly to discuss their portfolios. Our aim is to make sure that our clients are never surprised by anything in their portfolio. We accomplish this by staying as close as possible to both the client and the managers to which their assets are allocated. It becomes an important part of our ongoing due diligence process.