What an independent portfolio risk review actually looks at

The advisor who built the portfolio is rarely the right person to audit it. Distribution agreements, retrocessions, in-house funds, and platform economics all shape recommendations in ways the client never sees on a statement. An independent investment advisor reviews the same portfolio with no economic interest in any product inside it. That is the entire point.

1. 1. Structural exposure. What the portfolio is actually long, after look-through into funds, structured products, and overlapping mandates. Headline allocations are often misleading.
2. 2. Concentration risk. Single-name, single-sector, single-jurisdiction, and single-custodian concentration — including operational concentration that doesn't appear in a risk report.
3. 3. Fee and incentive drag. All-in cost across management fees, performance fees, platform fees, FX spreads, and embedded product economics. Compounded over a decade, this is rarely small.
4. 4. Manager and mandate alignment. Whether each manager is doing what they were hired to do, and whether the overall mandate still matches the family's actual long-term objectives.

A written assessment the family can read in one sitting: where the portfolio is structurally sound, where it is not, and what to do about it — ranked. No product recommendations, no commissions, no follow-on sales process.

• Inheriting or consolidating wealth across multiple institutions.
• A new advisor or private bank pitching a reorganization.
• Cross-border exposure that has grown faster than the structure around it.
• A material life event — sale of a business, relocation, generational transition.
• The simple fact that no one independent has looked in several years.