On concentrated books.

The arithmetic of private advice is straightforward. An adviser has a finite number of hours. Those hours can be spread across a long list of clients with thin service, or a short list with deep service. There is no middle.

We have chosen the short list. Our working assumption is that each principal mandate is worth between 60 and 120 hours of senior time per year — more in the year of a major transaction, less in steady state. That sets the upper limit of the book. It is not a marketing line.

The consequences are practical. It means a principal can call, and reach the person who knows their structure, within the working day. It means we decline work that does not fit. It means our best clients are referred by our existing best clients, which in a private-capital practice is the only referral that matters.

The consequences for the client are simpler. When the work is complex — a restructuring under pressure, a cross-border facility with a narrow close window, a private credit mandate where the wrong lender would sink the project — you are served by a senior hand, not a service team. That is the only thing we are selling. Everything else follows.