Carrivelle operates from Zurich as an independent multifamily office, owned by its principals and paid by its clients alone. Custody sits with institutions each family chooses, and we act on the authority they give us.
Every mandate begins with a written investment policy statement setting the return objective, the tolerance for loss, the liquidity schedule and the currencies that matter to the household.
See How We Invest↗
We help draft a charter and design the assembly or council that meets each year. Decision rights are recorded, including the threshold above which an investment requires collective agreement and the process that applies when relatives disagree.
Read about Governance↗
We help each family state what it intends to change, then select the vehicle that fits, whether it be a charitable foundation or a grant programme run from structures that already exist.
Explore Our Philanthropy↗Position sizing, liquidity buffers, leverage limits and counterparty exposure are set in advance and written into the policy statement. When a market moves against us, the response has already been agreed, so the decision follows a document drafted months earlier, when nobody was under pressure.
Holding periods in direct positions are measured in years, and we make that clear before a family commits. Quarterly reviews assess progress, but strategic allocations change only when the underlying rationale does. Every change is formally minuted.
Most arrive around a liquidity event: a sale, a partial exit, a secondary round or a dividend that changes the scale of the private balance sheet. The engagement starts with consolidation, then moves to allocation and to the education of children who will inherit. A concentrated stake in the founder's company is handled explicitly, with an agreed plan for how and when exposure reduces.
Boards appoint us to run an endowment against the spending policy they have set. We draft investment guidelines for board approval and keep the portfolio inside them. Reporting follows the format your auditors require, with an annual paper for the board covering performance, cost, exposure and any breach of guideline. Where the charitable purpose bears on how the endowment is invested, that constraint goes into the policy and is applied.
Pension schemes, insurers, corporate treasuries and comparable institutions engage us for allocation advice and manager selection where an internal team lacks coverage, most often in private markets. The engagement is defined narrowly and priced as a fee for service. We report into your existing committee cycle and attend meetings when asked. Every manager we recommend comes with the diligence file behind the recommendation.
We take responsibility for the whole balance sheet of a family: investment across listed and private markets, the structures holding the assets, the rules by which the family decides and the charitable programme where one exists. A mandate makes sense once the number of banks, jurisdictions, currencies and operating businesses involved has grown beyond what one person can manage.
The first meeting is a conversation. If it goes well, we prepare a scope of work listing what we take on, what stays with your existing advisers, what it costs and when it starts. A discovery phase follows, usually six to ten weeks, during which we collect statements from every custodian and map the ownership of each entity. That work produces an opening consolidated position. You approve an investment policy statement before any asset moves. Only then do we assume day-to-day responsibility.
We are owned by the people working in the business and paid only by the families who appoint us. No revenue reaches us from managers, banks, insurers or product providers, and any retrocession that arrives is credited back to the account it arose from. Fees are quoted as a flat annual amount or a percentage of assets under supervision. The amount is agreed in advance and invoiced in full view. Our conflicts policy goes to every client at the outset, covering personal dealing, gifts, outside directorships and any commercial relationship we hold.
They share a balance sheet and a set of accounts, so we treat them as one plan with two purposes. Charitable commitments are funded from an agreed share of the portfolio, and the liquidity needed to meet multi-year grant pledges is reserved well in advance. Where a family holds an impact allocation, it appears in the same consolidated statement as everything else, with its financial return and its measured outcome shown side by side. Grant decisions rest with the family or its foundation board. We prepare the assessment memo and administer payment.
A consolidated statement arrives quarterly, covering every account, currency, entity and asset class in one set of figures, with performance calculated after all costs and shown against the benchmarks in your policy statement. A shorter monthly position summary is available for families who want one. Each year you receive a full portfolio review, a fee statement showing every amount we were paid and by whom, a compliance letter and, where relevant, a philanthropic report against agreed indicators. Underlying data is available continuously through a secure client portal.
Preparation begins long before the event. We maintain a succession plan recording who inherits what, which structures change hands, who holds signing authority afterwards and where the documents are kept. Younger members enter the relationship early through an education programme covering how to read a consolidated statement and how the family's structures work. During a transition we brief the incoming generation individually and revise the investment policy statement to their circumstances. The family council is reconstituted under the charter. The mandate continues, and the people we answer to change.