Notes from the desk.
Four times a year the desk writes down what it is watching, what it declined, and why. The letters are short, the arithmetic is shown, and nothing in them is written to sell you anything. The current quarterly letter is below; older writing is kept in the archive.
Everything worth keeping.
Short essays from the people who do the work. No forecasts we cannot stand behind, no product to place at the end. When a piece is not yet written, we say so.
A house that does not hurry
Average daily balance, compounding, and the reason our statements print the calculation instead of asking you to trust it. What a reserve rate pays for, line by line.
July 2026 · 4 minBorrowing against a position you will not sell
Concentrated stock, partnership interests, and the discipline of a conservative advance rate when the collateral is a family's life work. Liquidity without a sale.
June 2026 · 6 min · Print archiveWhy we still weigh the gold
The assay desk is older than the charter. Two centuries on, the habit of weighing a thing properly before you lend against it is still the whole business.
May 2026 · 3 min · Print archiveWhat 1907 taught us about liquidity
The panic that produced a central bank left every private house a plainer lesson: liquidity is only real if it is already yours when you need it. What we kept from it.
April 2026 · 7 min · Print archiveHow to read a statement properly
Opening balance, credits, debits, closing balance, and a signature that proves the page. A short guide to the one document that reconciles to the cent and shows its work.
March 2026 · 5 min · Print archiveThe case against proprietary products
We are paid to keep and steward money, never to place it into something we manufactured. Why the house has never run a fund of its own, and does not intend to.
February 2026 · 4 min · Print archiveThe letter arrives by post. Ask to be added.
The quarterly letter goes to clients and to those the desk has met. Write to us, or ask the client who sent you here to make the call.