About

Founded in 2008, Brasada Capital Management is a privately-owned investment management firm based in Houston, Texas. Our mission is to achieve superior risk-adjusted returns for our clients through best-in-class investment offerings. We strive to maximize long-term returns using conservative approaches with a focus on reducing risk, fees, and tax implications.

Brasada was started in one of the most difficult time periods we have ever seen as investors.  This was a very challenging time to start the firm, but we believed our clients’ experience coming out of “The Great Recession” would’ve been superior to most times in our experience, and that has been the case.  We started as a hedge fund firm, but as time progressed, some of you asked if we would manage additional capital for you in other accounts.  We agreed and that brought new opportunities and ways of looking at the markets that have been mutually beneficial.

Our approach to managing private accounts has centered around seven key principles that we believe offer our clients the maximum chance of long-term success:

- Ensure agreement as to objectives, risk tolerance and then asset allocation.  Research shows this is the most important aspect in determining long-term investing success.

- Eat your own cooking:  Research shows that money managers who are substantially and personally invested in the same positions as their clients tend to generate superior long-term performance.  We are believers in managing money for our clients, whenever it’s possible, in the same or similar positions that we are personally invested in.  Over our investment careers, we have found no better risk control than this.

- Keep fees reasonable:  We do not utilize sales commissions for products and we do not normally initiate investments in mutual funds for our private clients, as that automatically eliminates a layer of fees.  Most accounts will normally have an all-in fee that is less than the median retail equity mutual fund.  Portfolios are typically constructed of individual positions of equities, bonds, and cash.  When clients save on fees, that helps generate better performance, which positively compounds results over time.

- Focus our collaborative, experienced personnel on investing:  Everyone at Brasada has extensive experience at very large firms, and has been responsible for large asset pools.  In our careers, we have also spent countless hours dealing with distractions like committee meetings.  At our firm, managers are able to channel their efforts in a manner that eliminates internal competition and wasted time on tasks that don’t matter to the portfolios of our clients and ourselves.

- Invest Conservatively:  We utilize liquid, diversified positions of equities for long-term growth, and bonds for income generation and principal protection. 

- We only work for our clients:  Each employee has previously worked for publicly traded companies who are challenged with two constituents that can sometimes have conflicting needs: the firm’s shareholders and the firm’s investors.  We are focused on investing for our clients and ourselves, and our firm is not involved in ancillary businesses.

- We realize for many accounts that taxes matter:  We believe clients often under appreciate the detriment that Uncle Sam can have on their investment returns, especially with taxes on investment income having increased again in 2013.  We are tax-aware investors, which means having a bias toward lower turnover of positions, seeking ways to minimize capital gains, and generating tax-free income through municipal bonds on the fixed income side.

Having spent the bulk of our careers at top-tier institutions, our principals are experienced and disciplined investors.  Working closely in a small firm that is solely devoted to your investment goals, we are poised to be nimble in fast changing markets. Our interests are aligned with yours, by virtue of us investing our own portfolios alongside yours.

The majority of our assets under management are from high net worth investors, many of whom are also investment professionals. We devote a substantial amount of time and attention to research, and pride ourselves in being known as a trusted partner in the investment industry.