Living Our Values

In our mission to provide clients with direct access to expert investment counsel, we are driven passionately by our Core Values of Trust, Independence and Service, bolstered by our Guiding Principles of Honor, Wisdom, Excellence and Discipline. Here are a few examples of how our organization, business decisions and daily actions reveal that we are truly living our values.

LIVING OUR VALUES: TRUST
Our organizational structure assures our honesty on all fronts. We never take custody of your assets; instead they are held at the financial institution of your choosing, and we can access that account only to initiate trades and deduct our fees. You will get two sets of statements, one from the custodian and one from Iron Capital, to ensure everything matches. We have a zero tolerance policy on breaches of our code of ethics.

LIVING OUR VALUES: INDEPENDENCE
As the financial crisis reached critical mass during the fall of 2008, Iron Capital’s independent structure afforded us insider access to industry insights and the ability to move swiftly to adjust client portfolios to insulate them from the crisis as best we could. Some of the actions we took were:

• Wrote six unscheduled client communications during the height of the crisis explaining what was happening, what we were doing about it and what it meant for our clients.
• Conducted due diligence on all of our clients’ custodial platforms.
• Verified holdings in all Stable Value and cash option investments to ascertain any exposure to distressed debt issues.
• Transferred all individual clients’ money market accounts to the money market fund with government-issued securities prior to the Treasury’s guarantee of money market assets.
• Confirmed client assets were insured against custodial failure.
• Had an exclusive conference call with AIG Retirement’s senior management to determine the financial strength of the company and safety of clients’ assets.

LIVING OUR VALUES: SERVICE
At Iron Capital, service has a different connotation than it does at many firms. For us, service is more than white-glove wealth management or service for service’s sake. It means investment teams that take time to truly understand a client’s individual circumstances and customize the client’s portfolio based on those insights. It means not just identifying which of our proprietary models best fits the client’s profile, but then tailoring our models specifically to the client’s goals. It means when a crisis or opportunity arises, our client service teams and investment managers work together to adjust client portfolios accordingly and then let clients know what’s been done and why. It means regular communication and no surprises. Should we reach a critical mass that would prohibit such customized service, we will close the firm to new business to protect our existing clients’ interests.