What is today CapMan Wealth started life as JAM Advisors in 2012. At the time it was a Finnish technology and solutions-oriented reporting, analysis and wealth management firm. JAM Advisors core offering, and part of the firm’s service concept, was its proprietary X-Ray service platform, which enabled a transparent look-through and analysis of each client’s overall wealth.
The company was acquired by CapMan in early 2019 and in 2020 CapMan separated the technology platform from the wealth management business and formed JAY Solutions. This company was sold to Swedish Bas Invest in 2023.
Today, CapMan Wealth continues to provide wealth management services to institutions, foundations, family offices and selected high-net-worth individuals in Finland – currently some 250 clients. Their solutions cover all asset classes globally, combining CapMan’s broader expertise and products – especially in private markets – with CapMan Wealth’s independent, systematic and in-depth manager selection process.
Jonatan Lehtinen, a portfolio and fund selection manager, started at JAM Advisors as a trainee in 2016 and has seen the development of the company first hand. He says he’s an investment nerd and that the role at CapMan Wealth suits him perfectly as the company’s structure means that he’s dynamically involved in both fund selection as well as portfolio management.
“We’ve grown quite a bit in recent years as part of CapMan and today we manage approximately one billion euros at CapMan Wealth. A substantial amount of that is in discretionary mandates today, but we still have advisory based mandates as well. We also manage our own private market programs across both private equity and private credit,” he says.
He explains that a lot of his work centres on the list of preferred funds that they monitor continuously. This list of funds also forms the basis for when they build portfolios. It currently contains approximately 50 funds across equities, fixed income and alternatives, with the majority found in the equity category, followed by fixed income. Then there are about ten funds in the liquid alternatives bucket. The number of funds and share of active-to-passives used in the discretionary portfolios depends on the strategy, according to Jonatan Lehtinen.
“For us, a classic 60/40 multi asset portfolio would typically be around 60 per cent equities, 20 per cent fixed income and 20 per cent alternatives. When selecting the underlying funds for these portfolios we use a mix of active and passive strategies,” he says.
Asked about what they are focusing on when looking for new managers, Jonatan Lehtinen says that over the last couple of years they’ve focused on having everything in place to be prepared for a potential broader rotation in the market.
“We’ve done a lot of work on various emerging markets and small caps to have the right strategies in place on our list of preferred funds. We’ve also done a lot of work on identifying the most suitable ETFs, which are great building blocks for our portfolios, and allow for more efficient tactical positioning.” he says. He adds that despite doing a lot of work on ETFs, they still very much utilize active managers as well.
“We’ve spent a lot of time internally reviewing and examining where we wanted to invest actively and where we should just prioritize cheap passive exposures. We also use a range of different types of active managers and as long as they have systematically shown that their process of managing money works and is persistent, we’re quite agnostic to different styles and strategies. However, what could be a red flag is if there’s a discrepancy in how they used to work and how they are working today. That makes it difficult for us to evaluate their ongoing work in relation to their longer history,” he says.
Asked if he would agree that a manager can be compared to a chef that follows a recipe and uses the right tools and ingredients, Jonatan Lehtinen says that’s 100 per cent correct.
“My role as a selector is not only to understand the recipe and how the chef works, but also that they stick to their recipe within reasonable limits. We don’t want them to change the recipe too much because then we will not have full confidence as to what type of exposures we have in the portfolio,” he says.
Asked about what will make them change a fund, Jonatan Lehtinen says that the hardest thing to evaluate is disappointing returns. “A year or two of disappointing returns will not upset us if it’s well explained, for example by the investment style being out of favour. For me it’s more a case of understanding the underperformance and drivers behind it. We will not be the first to sell out after a couple of years of underperformance. It’s not reasonable to expect any manager to be able to outperform year in and year out. If it continues for a longer period, we of course need to take a hard look at what’s happening to see if we have more conviction elsewhere. It’s a balance of being patient and at the same time reacting quickly enough if circumstances have changed,” he says.
What is today CapMan Wealth started life as JAM Advisors in 2012. At the time it was a Finnish technology and solutions-oriented reporting, analysis and wealth management firm. JAM Advisors core offering, and part of the firm’s service concept, was its proprietary X-Ray service platform, which enabled a transparent look-through and analysis of each client’s overall wealth. The company was acquired by CapMan in early 2019 and in 2020 CapMan separated the technology platform from the wealth management business and formed JAY Solutions. This company was sold to Swedish Bas Invest in 2023. Today, CapMan Wealth continues to provide wealthIf you’re new to Tell Media Group, create an account first.
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