Cambridge Associates

Cambridge Associates is a leading global investment firm. The firm aims to help private clients, endowments & foundations, healthcare systems, and pension plans implement and manage custom investment portfolios to generate outperformance so they can maximize their impact on the world. With more than 50 years of institutional investing insights, the firm has helped to shape and implement investment best practices and built strong global investment networks with the purpose of driving ...read more
  • Snapshot
  • Interview
  • Vital Statistics
  • Resources

This information provided by Cambridge Associates

Who We Are

We are a privately held, independent investment firm whose sole focus is to help each client realize their unique long-term objectives.  We do so by establishing a deep understanding of our clients’ needs, taking on their challenges and goals as our own, rigorously researching institutional-quality opportunities, and building custom portfolios grounded in sound investment principles and designed to outperform. Applying our proven endowment model to the intricacies of private investing, we serve a community of 240+ individual and family clients around the world, offering an objective, client-first approach. Every client benefits from:

  • Unbiased advice from a privately held, independent firm that has no other interests or business agendas that might compete with our clients for our best ideas;
  • Deep client partnerships that enable truly customized service and portfolios;
  • Access to global investment opportunities through a well-established network of manager relationships; and
  • Nearly 40 years’ experience helping private investors and families realize their long-term investment goals and fulfill their legacies.
Our Services

We are a hands-on investment partner, offering discretionary and non-discretionary portfolio management services. 

  • PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT. When building portfolios for private clients, we are responsible for managing the portfolio and delivering results. Families can choose to work with us on a discretionary or non-discretionary basis. In both arrangements, we collaborate closely with the family office and/or family. Under our discretionary arrangement, we are responsible for portfolio strategy, implementation, day-to-day management, and operations. Under a non-discretionary arrangement, we are responsible for day-to-day oversight of the portfolio, providing directive recommendations on asset allocation, portfolio structure and manager selection— all subject to approval by the client. We have been working with private clients in this highly engaged intensive model for more than 35 years. 
  • ALTERNATIVE ASSET MANDATES. With investment expertise across asset classes, and specialized resources in alternative assets, we manage a portion of a private client’s portfolio, such as private equity, private credit, co-investments, hedge funds, real assets, or other asset classes. As with our portfolio management services for total assets, private clients engage with us in either a discretionary or a non-discretionary capacity for single asset mandates. 
  • STAFF EXTENSION SERVICES. For families with a well-staffed investment office, we partner closely with them to complement and augment their in-house resources, providing our expertise and manager relationships across asset classes or in specific asset classes only.
What's Special About Us?

Cambridge Associates was founded more than 45 years ago on the core principle of providing clients with independent advice, and we have diligently adhered to that standard. Our only business is providing advice, research, and performance reporting to private clients and institutional investors. We work directly for the owners of assets and do not offer any off-the-shelf investment products. We have significant experience serving families and serve nearly 240 families and high-net-worth individuals with assets ranging from less than $100 million to more than $10 billion.

See the Glossary for definitions of these metrics.

This information provided by Cambridge Associates

How does your firm deliver integrated services and what does that mean for your clients?: 

Due to the diversity and size of our private client base, we have experience advising on a broad range of investment issues that are unique to these investors. While we carefully customize our advice to reflect the needs and objectives of each private client, we have worked with family members, managers, legal counsel, and tax advisors on investment planning issues such as: - Refining a “tax aware” investment planning approach. - Analyzing pre-tax and after-tax returns for various asset classes as well as the benefits and risks of various investment strategies with respect to taxes. - Creating and improving diversified portfolios aimed at generating increased returns and lower volatility. - Developing strategies for large, single security and asset block holdings. - Implementing investment objectives, policies, and asset allocations for complex trust structures. - Establishing distribution policies and strategies that can support the needs of more than one generation. - Selecting and evaluating investment managers for virtually all traditional and alternative asset classes, including inflation hedging assets.

What core services do you provide for your average client profile?: 

Cambridge Associates’ core services are investment consulting and its supporting functions including research services, and performance measurement. We work with each client to formulate and maintain a long-term asset allocation strategy that meets its investment objectives, risk tolerance, and financial goals. This process focuses on setting investment objectives and policies, allocating funds among asset classes; choosing a manager structure; selecting investment managers; and evaluating custody, cash management, investment education, generational wealth transfer, and other services. For those clients who seek comprehensive oversight of all or part of their portfolio, we offer advisory or outsourcing services. Depending on the client’s needs, we can serve in the capacity of a professional investment staff or family office or we can operate as an extension of an existing staff. Our performance monitoring service provides investors with the information they need to maintain close supervision of the portfolio as a whole, of the asset classes represented in the portfolio, and of each investment manager. Our reporting capabilities are underpinned by our proprietary manager databases. The firm also provides fiduciary trust services and can act as sole trustee, co-trustee, or successor trustee.

What is your firm's investment philosophy?: 

Our investment philosophy emphasizes the benefits of diversification. We believe that by diversifying across a number of dimensions, an investor is better able to maintain a consistent pattern of long-term returns. More specifically, we believe that: - Investors must balance distributions between current and future generations in order to preserve purchasing power in perpetuity. - A high equity allocation is usually necessary to achieve capital appreciation and meet distribution requirements. - Broad diversification mitigates the risk inherent in a high equity allocation. - Fixed income can capitalize on tax-efficient strategies and maintain liquidity during prolonged periods of economic contraction or deflation. - Hard assets can serve as a hedge against unexpected inflation. - Modest tactical underweights or overweights may be beneficial, but large shifts of allocation should be avoided. - Periodic rebalancing helps control risk, but must be done in the context of the total portfolio strategy, costs, and tax implications. - A disciplined, long-term investment strategy should focus on economic factors while being mindful of tax considerations. - Hiring and firing managers requires discipline and a long-term perspective. - Investment oversight, governance, and policies need to be reviewed periodically.

What are your firm's mission,vision and values?: 

Our mission is to help private investors and institutions around the world meet or exceed their investment objectives by providing proactive, unbiased advice that is grounded in intensive and independent research. Cambridge Associates was founded on this principle more than 35 years ago, and we have remained diligently committed to its practice ever since.

How are your client teams structured to deliver services to their clients?: 

Consulting teams lead client relationships. Teams are tailored to the size and complexity of each client portfolio and can range from 4 to 12 team members. Typically, client teams have two primary generalist consultants as well as consulting analysts, performance analysts, and hedge fund and/or private investments specialists. Additionally, an administrative support professional is assigned to the team to ease the burden of administrative work. The members of the client teams utilize all resources of the firm to provide investment advice to their clients.

How would you describe your ideal client?: 

Our clients are highly diverse in terms of type, asset size, and many other respects. Clients typically have more than $100 million in assets and are interested in a sophisticated investment approach as well as investment education. Cambridge Associates has been helping private investors meet or exceed their investment objectives since 1982. Today, we serve nearly 200 families and high-net-worth individuals. Due to the diversity and size of our private clients, we have experience advising on a broad range of investment issues that are unique to these investors. We carefully customize our advice to reflect the needs and objectives of each private client. Our long history in advising private investors has enabled us to amass a wealth of peer group data that benefits all of our clients.

What are the top three characteristics that distinguish your firm the most from your competitors?: 

- Customized Recommendations and Service Approach. We believe that our most salient differentiator is our independence from investment management firms we recommend. Our independence gives us the freedom to provide advice that is motivated only by an individual client’s best interests; we never use model portfolios or other standardized solutions in our consulting work. In addition, we strive to customize each service arrangement to reflect a client’s needs, resources, and expectations for the consulting relationship. - Alternative Assets Expertise. We have a deep knowledge of alternative assets that we have been developing and refining since our inception. Our extensive experience in this area includes working with some of the earliest and most sophisticated investors in venture capital, hedge funds, and other alternative asset classes. - Global Research Resources and Deep Manager Due Diligence. We have more than 200 professionals exclusively dedicated to research. This staff is based in eight offices located across four continents, bringing a global perspective to our research and consulting work.

What communication methods have you used with your clients?: 

The frequency with which we meet with clients depends on their specific needs, preferences, and expectations for the relationship. We serve as a resource that clients can access as often as needed and we review client portfolios on a day-to-day basis. Additionally, we have a variety of opportunities for clients to interact with our firm and peers. We hold client conferences, roundtable discussion, and webinars.

What formal and informal client education programs does your company provide?: 

We host a variety of formal and informal conferences and educational forums for our clients. The subject matter of these events is based on the current market environment and topics requested by our clients. We also host an annual global investment workshop, which all clients are invited to attend, and a periodic “roundtable”, where private investors can share investment-related insights and information. To enable our clients to directly benefit from our vast research effort, we publish approximately 100 proprietary research reports each year. We also publish periodic reports on historical capital market returns and valuations. In addition, we issue ad hoc reports on topics that are directly motivated by our clients’ interests, needs, and requests. Customized individual educational sessions are available to all of our advisory clients and are arranged on an as needed basis.

What is your firm's expertise with alternative investments?: 

We believe that we have developed a deep and rich knowledge of alternative assets. For over three decades, we have advised a wide variety of investors, including some of the earliest investors in venture capital and other alternative asset classes. Today, we have approximately 200 professionals who are dedicated to providing research, advice, and performance measurement services for our clients’ alternative investments. We typically advise our clients to maintain some allocation to alternative assets in order to enhance returns as well as to provide diversification. While alternative investments might be thought of as risky on a stand-alone basis, their combination of attractive return expectations and low correlation to traditional assets can actually enhance long-term returns while mitigating overall portfolio volatility. We believe that investing in alternative assets with clear investment objectives, and in the appropriate funds, ultimately brings many benefits to a portfolio.

See the Glossary for definitions of these metrics.

This information provided by Cambridge Associates

Background

Year Firm Established: 
1973

Stats

As of date: 
Monday, December 31, 2018
Currency: 
US Dollar
Assets Under Management (Mil): 
32,462
Assets Under Advisement (Mil): 
404,500
Primary Generations Served: 
G1
G2
G3
G4
Total Employees: 
1 279
Frequency of Financial Reporting: 
Monthly
Quarterly
Annually
Do you provide consolidated financial reporting?: 
No

See the Glossary for definitions of these metrics.

Contact

Allison Azar
Managing Director, Private Clients & Family Offices
+1 (617) 697-6135

Headquarters

Headquarters: 
115 Federal Street
Suite 2600
Boston  Massachusetts  02110
United States

Category

Advisor Type(s)

Log in or join the free FOX Public Network and you'll be able to browse, search, and compare profiles.

Disclaimer: The listing of any firm in the Advisor directory, as well as any related profile, report, presentation or other information on this site, does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement by FOX of any firm listed therein, nor does it constitute any form of investment, legal or tax advice.    The information contained in any profile, report presentation or other information regarding Advisors has been provided by such Advisor without independent verification by FOX.  Accordingly, FOX makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of such information and assumes no liability for any inaccuracies or omissions therein. The “Leading Wealth Advisor” designation is not in any way based upon any client’s experience with, or endorsement of, such Leading Wealth Advisor.