Risk commentary brief
A shorter note for months when the committee only needs drawdown, concentration, and a written account of what the risk charts are saying.
Dorset reporting practice
Bound figures for people who sit on investment committees, not dealing desks.
We write performance and risk packs from holdings files: time-weighted return against the comparator in the policy, drawdown paths with dates, sleeve contribution, and a commentary that stops where the file stops.
The quarterly pack we are hired to finish
Charity trustees, family offices, and discretionary managers send us the custodian extract and the benchmark name. Ten working days later they receive a dated PDF they can circulate: exhibits numbered, methods footnoted, no live screen to apologise for in the meeting.
We do not advise on purchases. We reconstruct what the period did, and we say when a blank price means the reconstruction is incomplete.
Other papers from the same desk
Some boards only need a risk note. Others want the comparator they have been printing since 2019 checked against the policy wording. The work is still reporting, still human, still tied to a meeting date.
Sleeve contribution and attribution study
A reconstruction of which sleeves, sectors, or currency effects carried or dragged the period, written so a non-specialist trustee can follow the arithmetic.
Trustee and committee circulation pack
A circulation-ready set: cover minute, exhibits, commentary, and a one-page list of decisions the meeting still owes itself.
Drawdown and stress narrative
A focused write-up after a sharp fall: what the path looked like, which holdings led the move, and which questions remain unanswered in the file.
Benchmark restatement review
A check of whether the series the committee has been shown still matches the mandate’s stated comparator, including currency and income treatment.
Helena’s pack arrived two days before circulation with the drawdown path dated and the ten largest lines named in pounds. Trustees actually used the concentration table in the meeting.
How a file becomes a minuteable paper
Intake, reconciliation, locked exhibits, then prose. The order matters: commentary written before the numbers are stable is how packs acquire adjectives they cannot defend.
See the reporting cycle we keep to when a board date is already in the diary.