We were named after Orpheus who was an ancient Greek legendary hero who was a prophet, a poet, with superhuman musical skills.
Orpheus charmed himself into the underworld, passed the ferryman Charon and the dog Cerberus, guardians of the River Styx.
His music and grief so moved Hades, King of the Underworld that Orpheus was allowed to take his wife, Eurydice, with him back to the world of life and light on the condition that upon leaving they “did not look back”.
The moral of Orpheus and Eurydice is to be patient and keep one’s faith.
What are you working on?
We are seeing Wealth Managers provide individual AMCs to HNW clients ($500k+), allowing them to trade a wide array of assets in their portfolios – we view this as the beginning of mass-customised portfolio management.
We are seeing Family Offices weigh the pros and cons of using their Fund Manager of choice in their AMC compared to using the Fund itself. The latter has the same manager, the same strategy, and similar risks but cheaper administration.
There is a growing interest in Portfolios of Structured Products, and Alternative Investment Strategies, which may be because 20 years in the FTSE 100 (for example) has delivered 0.50% pa price return, 4.00% total return (cf. MSCI World TR at 7.4% pa). Because of this, we are involved in a wide array of projects for product managers and their investors.
We are currently involved in Personalised Solutions, which include Equities, Fixed Income, Credit, Managed Funds, ETFs, Structured Products, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Managed Funds, Hedge Funds, Physical Gold, Fine Wine Collections, Investment Grade Diamonds, Vintage Cars, Carbon Markets, Agri-Tech Projects, Eco-Friendly Student Villages, Fuel Hedging, High-Frequency Trading, Copper Mines, Global Diversified Futures Strategies, Venture Capital, Litigation Finance, Agri-Tech and Impact Farming.
We are doing work with clients in the Bahamas, Mauritius, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, Switzerland, Israel, France, the Middle East, Australia, and the UK.
We also have Orpheus Oriens in the UAE focus on capital raising.
We have colleagues in Australia exploring how we do more for SA Wealth Managers and their families who have immigrated.
What are you working on?
Our limitation is your imagination and what you need to enable.
- We are not a bank.
- We are not a broker.
- We are not a platform.
- We are independent.
We help clients overcome their hurdles and enable them to put together solutions that they want for their investors.
The Product Manager can plug in their broker to the setup or choose from a wide array of brokers.
We can help if the client needs a broker for a specific purpose (e.g., borrowing against each SP line in the portfolio, or buying SA Bank-issued AMCs).
We help AMs on liquid strategies get going for $100k+.
We help project managers get going for $1mn+.
We cater for bankable and non-bankable assets, so the cell can buy directly if the broker cannot hold assets.
We can buy and hold OTC Bank Notes or Notes with Leverage and Protection.
We put Personalised Securitisation in the hands of our clients and their investors and continue to expand the possibilities with our partners through our offerings.
Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
Johannesburg, South Africa
UK Office: +44 79 58 66 61 72
SA Office: +27 82 33 06 877
Frequently Asked Questions
This is a question related to SA hybrid tax and CFC rules. Nothing can stop an SA PM from setting up their own PCC to issue AMCs, but they could fall foul of CFC rules (cf. Coronation fined R1bn).
There is no tax within the AMC. The most likely tax event when an investor sells certificates is CGT at the marginal rate, in whichever jurisdiction the investor resides.
Using our issuance platform would be considerably cheaper than setting up a trust and could contain many assets.
It could be a way to future-proof a trust portfolio if trusts in the future were to be taxed, and there are no limitations to what can be held in the portfolio.
There is no traditional issuer risk as you would have with a Bank AMC. Following events with Credit Suisse and US domestic banks, removing issuer risks has become important for client credit committees.
A bank-issued AMC is an on-balance sheet, compared to our setup, which is an off-balance sheet. Your risk is to the underlying assets held in the particular cell that issued your Termsheet. This is similar to an Asset Manager who only manages the funds on behalf of the investors, in accordance with mandate. They don’t own the funds. If the PM ceased to exist the investor funds still exist and would be returned.
We think of it as investing in a Safety Deposit Box rather than a Bank Vault. Your ISIN is your key and allows you to access it. All parties involved are mandated to do so but don’t have the right to the funds.
The security is registered on the Swiss Exchange (SIX). It is Euroclear settled via the SIX Clearing System. Typically, the client’s Bank/Broker/Platform would be provided with the ISIN and Termsheet instructing their bank custodian to trade the security for their account.
Private Placements are typically intended for qualified, accredited, and institutional investors. They can be listed, but they are not publicly available; not everyone needs to know what you are issuing (if you don’t want them to). They cannot be publicly solicited but do give the Product Manager control regarding the investors he deems suitable for such an offering. On subscription, the number of investors is limited to 50 in Switzerland, but no limitation once issued.
Public Offerings are more onerous. Because they are publicly available on exchange anyone can buy it. As a result of this, they may have additional listing documentation, collateralisation may be required, as well as Key Investor Documents (KIDs).
Again, it is worth thinking about the difference between a Segregated Mandate and a Unit Trust Fund in terms of audience and access.
This is a personalised securitisation solution, so it comes down to the requirements of the PM and their Investors. It can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or other custom.
It depends on the assets being held in the portfolio and customised to the PM’s and their investors’ needs. I can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or custom (e.g. willing buyer willing seller).
This is a personalised securitisation solution, so liquidity is determined by the Product Manager, who has the fiduciary responsibility to ensure their investors are well-informed.
We have had requests for no liquidity for the first three years and then monthly liquidity after that. We have HFMs who have monthly liquidity to match their HF.
Trackers, CLNs, Actively Managed Certificates, and Tokens. Trackers are static investments (e.g., trackers on the S&P 500, physical property, fund or investment-grade diamonds). CLNs are structured loans and tend to be deal-specific (tenor, coupons, etc.).
AMC is a discretionary portfolio delivered in a single security.
These are personalised securitisation solutions where you can plug and play the parties that make sense for you. We have clients working with Swissquote, Interactive Brokers, EFG Bank, DMA, Saxobank – specific to their needs. We are also exploring ABSA Prime Services and others.
Traditional - Equities, Fixed Income, Currencies, Commodities, ETFs, Managed Funds, ETPs, Structured Products, Listed Property, Listed PE/VC/Infrastructure.
Alternatives – Physical Property, Hedge Funds, High-Frequency Trading, Private Equity, Venture Capital, Infrastructure, Diamonds, Physical Metals, Fine Wine.
Private Investments – Renewable Energy Projects, Impact Investments, Mining Projects, Renewable Yachts, Hydrogen.
We are working with the exchanges and related partners on a secondary listing, in ZAR, which would feed into the offshore issuance. We are also exploring how to have ZAR issuance on SA assets (public and private market assets).