"Evidence-Based" Approach Cuts Through Noise At NFG Partners
WealthBriefing talks to a Geneva-headquartered wealth management firm about its approach and investment style honed over the past 10 years.
WealthBriefing recently interviewed NFG Partners, a Geneva-headquartered independent wealth management firm. We talked about the challenge of investing in times of heightened geopolitical stress, as is the case right now in the Middle East, to take an obvious example. In particular, the conversation hinged around cutting through the fog of such events to pursue investment themes that yield durable results.
WealthBriefing spoke to Glenn Coxon, NFG’s chief investment officer and Nick Bedford, investment manager. The main team members of NFG are Zam Manji (co-founder) Yohan Palleau (co-founder), Nicholas Bedford, Alessandro D’Errico (business development), and Ryan Corton, who is chief operating officer. The firm is scheduled to open in the United Arab Emirates this year – approval from the DIFC is in process.
The business oversees about SFr350 million ($456 million) as at the end of 2025, when the founding family’s own assets are taken out of the mix. The firm expects to reach about SFr500 million by the end 2026.
There’s an important anniversary: NFG is in its third year, but it is the 10th year of Coxon and Joshua Oldham’s (investment manager) systematic portfolio strategies which began at Harver Capital (their previous shop) and is now under NFG since the duo joined the firm in the autumn of 2023.
WealthBriefing: There has been a lot of “geopolitical noise” in recent months (too many examples to summarise), and it can be a distraction. How does your investment process work in blotting out this noise in order to focus on other drivers of return?
NFG: What we call our “evidence-based” approach is specifically designed to filter out this noise and focus on what actually matters for asset allocation. Rather than having an investment committee debating whether Trump's tariff threats are real or posturing, etc., we have proprietary models which, free of emotion or bias, systematically observe the macro, technical and fundamental inputs that genuinely drive financial markets – essentials such as growth, inflation, trends, and credit conditions – which then give our asset allocation output, avoiding the potential group think and inaction of committees.
A perfect example was in the fourth quarter of 2024. Our models began to overweight European equities vs the US at precisely the time when the news flow for Europe was utterly dire. Trump was on the scene and threatening to cut Ukraine funding, Volkswagen was closing factories in Germany.
Had we been a traditional committee-driven manager, we would almost certainly have been swayed by the headlines. Instead, our systematic process looked at the evidence which told a different story:
-- Relative expectations were at an extreme as depicted by the dramatic relative outperformance of the US vs Europe;
-- US inflation was proving stickier than Europe's, implying associated higher rates; and
-- Growth expectations in Europe were ticking up from weak while US leading economic indicators were softening from strong to “ok.”
Our model’s overweight to Europe was just one of the contributors to our sizeable outperformance of about 7 per cent vs peers in 2025.
WB: What’s your view on whether your kind of approach is likely to become even more important with all the volatile political/other noises out there?
NFG: We firmly believe that our “evidence-based” systematic approach is becoming more valuable as geopolitical noise and volatility increase, not less.
As debt levels spiral across the West and faith in the monetary system begins to ebb – combined with the rise of populism – the geopolitical backdrop is likely to become even more noisy and fractured.
In such an environment, having our models that can turn down the noise, not get swept up in the emotion of the 24/7 news cycle and simply focus on fundamentals will be imperative to continuing to deliver our outperformance for our clients.
WB: What do fund buyers (private banks, discretionary wealth managers, family offices, etc) tell you about your approach and why they come to you?
NFG: There are several attributes that clients seek in our work, but the underpinning is consistency. Our models have been built to optimise for robustness, consistency of process and there has been very little adjustment to the composition, calculation or implementation of our indicators in over a decade. It’s this consistency that has led to our sustained performance, both relative and absolute terms, over the 10-year track record.
In combination with a willingness to de-risk in periods of adversity, through asset allocation generally leads to lower and shorter drawdowns.
Lastly our clients would rather not make a style “call” on the market. “Growth,” “value,” “quality,” and “small cap” all have periods when they outperform considerably. “Large cap growth” has been a dominant force for years, however this will not always be the case. Our models are completely style agnostic, allocating to the themes that will thrive in the dominant macro regime.
WB: Can you talk a bit about recent strategy performance and what the highlights are? Are there any areas you need to improve and why?
NFG: 2025 was stellar year in that most of our models performed well, leading to exceptional returns across all portfolios (+4 per cent/+7 per cent ahead of ARC PCI for the calendar year dependent on mandate). The main drivers were:
-- Europe overweight from Q4 2024;
-- Allocating to emerging market equities in June 2025 for the first time in many years; and
-- Up to 10 per cent gold exposure in multi-asset portfolio.
In terms of improvement, our equity allocation model can struggle in the first few months of a bear market, taking time to adapt to shifting conditions. We are developing a couple of indicator suites to monitor developing systemic risks ahead of market tops to derisk a little earlier than has been the case previously.
As we always tell our clients – we don’t always get it right but, thankfully, we have been more right than we are wrong per our 10-year track record.
WB: A theme appears to be that NFG employs a systematic approach to investing. Can you explain what this consists of?
NFG: All eighteen indicators of our equity allocation model are available to clients in their entirety, but a few key indicators worth highlighting are:
-- Rising long rates (government and corporate) are a headwind for equity markets;
-- Improving leading economic indicators are a positive for equity markets;
-- Seasonality matters, there are months in the year when equities tend to perform well;
-- Market trend breadth, trend is an important signal and having multiple markets corroborating one another is important; and
-- Credit spreads and volatility contain a lot of information about the appetite for risk.
WB: You use ETFs and other index trackers as investment building blocks. Why do you take this approach?
NFG: Our models were built on publicly available index data. When we have a buy signal for small cap US equities, for example, allocating to a Russell 2000 ETF provides a very close replication of the exposures we are seeking.
Rebalancing within indices has little impact on the index total returns, and the liquidity, instant access, diversification of ETFs are very desirable.
The other reason for using ETFs, and one which our client’s really appreciate, is that it avoids paying away active fees on in-house bank products (a constant source of tension) or active managers who don’t beat benchmarks. This of course ensures that our clients keep more of their returns!
WB: How do you avoid factors such “style drift” to ensure that a client’s stated risk tolerance preferences are adhered to?
NFG: We have strict limits on asset allocation that do not deviate over time. Many managers have been adding more and more risk to their investment benchmarks. One example from a client showed equity exposure in a sterling balanced mandate moving from 38 per cent to 65 per cent over the last 12 years. The description of the client profile, however, was unchanged as “balanced.”
WB: What length of time do you typically invest money for clients?
NFG: As we always tell our clients – we are long-term investors, not traders. Our focus is on building actively managed portfolios to meet medium-to long-term objectives. We would always suggest a five-year+ time horizon for our discretionary service.
In terms of our tactical positioning, we are generally seeking to assess the six to 12-month outlook for a particular asset class. However, some themes such as underweight emerging markets, persisted for many years until that turned in the middle of 2025, as discussed.
WB: Does your investment process involve decisions about specific stocks, bonds, etc, or do you avoid this and focus on indices instead?
NFG: Stock picking is incredibly hard to deliver consistently and without any inherent style bias, as has been seen now by the amount of active fund managers who regularly fail to beat benchmarks.
In fixed income we have one active high-yield manager we employ as ETFs aren’t as efficient in this segment. This allocation generally represents 5 to 10 per cent of portfolios depending on the outlook for credit and duration.
WB: How much of your investment process is influenced by a top-down view of macroeconomic forces, risks, politics, other?
NFG: Our asset allocation is almost entirely driven by top-down macro factors. Where we are different is that we don't have committees trying to forecast where growth, inflation and rates are going. Instead, our models look at observable macro data – what the data is telling us now. We call it evidence-based investing. This removes human emotion and bias from the process and means that we can be truly active managers rather than benchmark huggers.
WB: There is a “paradigm shift” going on: US Big Techs and the stock market are less alluring than previously; Europe is shifting towards fiscal expansion, the dollar has depreciated, etc. Does NFG agree that this is the situation and, if so, how does it intend to grow clients’ wealth and position itself?
NFG: Broadly speaking we agree – the relative attractiveness of US assets is diminishing. Our models have been overweight international equities vs the US for some time, however that has changed a little recently, following the recent rerating in the large cap growth space.
Looking ahead, managers won't simply be able to buy US large caps unhedged, it will require far more active management.
Europe will have periods of outperformance from time to time, but I suspect emerging market equities will be the star performer in the coming years.
WB: How do you see the financial markets/economy in Europe/globally panning out in the next year or so? Are you generally optimistic or more cautious?
NFG: We are at the beginning of the end for the monetary system as we know it. Austerity has been tried and failed, there is a concerted effort to grow the economy to improve debt to GDP metrics and when this plan fails, we will see persistent monetisation of debt.
This might appear very doom and gloom, but the truth is that financial assets will do very well in a run [of a] hot economy and when balance sheet expansion (rebranded such as reserve management purchases) gains traction. The longer-term worry to consider will be inflation and that requires a very different playbook.
WB: In your investment approach, do you use derivatives to enhance yield, protect downside risks, etc?
NFG: We use derivates for currency hedging and, for our clients seeking leverage or liquidity, we can also offer futures, which are partly collateralised, and can sometimes be a competitive alternative to the Lombard loans offered by our custodian banks.
WB: Your core strategies were incepted in 2016 (previously under Harver Capital SA). Can you explain what this refers to?
NFG: Glenn Coxon founded Harver Capital in late 2015 and implemented our evidence-based approach throughout that time. In 2023 NFG partners acquired Harver Capital and the discretionary strategies have been completely unchanged since then.
WB: What does the future hold for NFG in terms of where it is based, clients it seeks to attract, and challenges to overcome?
NFG: We’re extremely excited about the next chapter for NFG, having experienced strong AuM growth since inception. We have some ambitious plans and we believe that the independent wealth management space is still at an early stage of its evolution, as more clients and advisors are drawn to this model – attracted by its independence, transparency and alignment of interests – without the constraints of a large institution. And we believe that our systematic investment approach, longevity of track record, and high-touch personal service set us apart.
In terms of geography, Switzerland will always be our headquarters. Beyond its long-standing reputation as the gold standard for private wealth, it offers political stability, institutional credibility and a deep ecosystem of banks, intermediaries and specialists – all essential to delivering our full family office offering. In a more fragmented geopolitical environment, that combination ensures that it remains the natural base from which to serve our internationally mobile clients and safeguard their assets.
At the same time, we’re expanding our footprint into the UAE this year. With an existing client base across the Gulf, establishing a permanent presence in the DIFC in 2026 reflects our long-term commitment to the region. The pace of wealth creation across the GCC represents a broader structural shift in global capital and entrepreneurship. Being on the ground ensures that we are best placed to support entrepreneurs and wealth creators as that growth accelerates, while Switzerland remains our core investment and custody hub.
