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Star Magnolia

or magnolia stellata, is a flowering tree, native to the Ise Bay area of central Honshu, the largest island in Japan. The small fuzzy buds appear in the coldest time of the winter, and in early spring, the buds burst open into a starburst of white flowers, each flower a little 12-petaled star in itself. Due to its elegance, Star Magnolia is cultivated widely as a parent of many hybrids of magnolia trees all over the world.

About Us

Star Magnolia Capital

We are a multifamily office, providing financial advice and portfolio management to a select number of individuals and their family members, family offices, and affiliated entities (each, a “Family,” and collectively, the “Families”). While our Families all benefit from shared resources, each Family has its unique situation.


Therefore, our approach is to work with each Family in order to understand the complete financial picture of the Family in a holistic manner, and then we devise a mutually agreeable portfolio management plan. The investment program is customized for each Family and will incorporate a selection of managers whom we believe are the most talented and suitable across the world.

Star Magnolia Capital creates a structured process which prioritizes and addresses the most important issues for each Family. Our investment philosophy aims to preserve capital, to reduce volatility and to increase long-term purchasing power.


Our approach includes but not limited to the following:

  • Asset allocation with broad asset class diversification

  • Access to investment managers

  • Due diligence

  • Liquidity management

  • Investment implementation advice and support

  • Integration of legal, governance and other factors that impact financial results

Read this to learn more about our Founding Partner - Interview with Shinya Deguchi 

Read this to learn more about our Team - Meet the Members of the House of Mulans

Principles

  • Star Magnolia Capital endeavors to discover the truth a result of which, we aim not only to survive but also to thrive.

  • The interests of our clients come first in everything we do.

  • The employees of Star Magnolia Capital are collectively one of the largest clients for our investment program. Substantially all of the liquid net worth of the employees is invested alongside with that of the clients, placing our financial interests squarely in line with those of the clients.

  • Star Magnolia Capital will be ethical, fair, honorable, and straightforward in all our business relationships. If there is ever a conflict between the right way and the potentially more profitable but vaguely questionable way, we will not hesitate to choose the right way. Our reputation is our most valuable asset.

  • Star Magnolia Capital strives to be transparent in our dealings with our major constituencies: our clients, employees, outside advisors and vendors, and the brokerage community. We believe that an open discussion of our investment and business objectives and opinions is in the best interest of Star Magnolia Capital’s investment performance.

INVEST!

Star Magnolia Capital: Becoming Experts at Finding Experts

To celebrate the 10th anniversary, we created and published an investoon (invest + cartoon) of Star Magnolia Capital based on our Harvard Business School case study. It is not only a funny reading material for children, but an effective way to exposure harsh truths in the adult orld. When it comes to the passing down of family wealth and legacy, we often face uncomfortable challenges that disintegrate the family. As the saying goes, wealth doesn't last over three generations, and we are certainly interested in breaking the karmatic cycle. It is not only simply about a wealth management, but also about planting seeds to grow trees for our next generation.

INVEST! Special Education (Star Magnolia Capital) tells the story of a wealthy family whose selfishness surfaces when the family patriarch's health deteriorates. The one who ends up carrying the flag turns out to be the third generation of the family. So, what is the role of Star Magnolia Capital in this situation? How can we serve the family to overcome the very problem of the three generations?

5-chapter full story is available on our Substack now!

Whitepapers & Case Study

Harvard Business School's Case Study

This case study was prepared and published by Harvard Business School L.E. Simmons Professor Lauren Cohen and Prof. Gao Hao, and used by Prof. Cohen to teach the first class of HBS Executive Education Family Office Program: Ensuring Your Family's Legacy in Fall 2022.

This white paper addresses a number of challenges wealthy Asian families face regarding capital preservation over multiple generations. Methods of analysis include macro and performance analyses, as well as peer comparison. The results of our analysis suggest that the Endowment Approach is the preferred way of investing in order to preserve purchasing power over time. In particular, we find that allocating capital to external managers is a more efficient way of successfully managing capital and retaining investment talent to oversee that capital.

This white paper addresses a number of challenges wealthy Asian families face regarding capital preservation over multiple generations. Methods of analysis include macro and performance analyses, as well as peer comparison. The results of our analysis suggest that the Endowment Approach is the preferred way of investing in order to preserve purchasing power over time. In particular, we find that allocating capital to external managers is a more efficient way of successfully managing capital and retaining investment talent to oversee that capital.

This white paper addressed a number of challenges that charitable foundations around the world, particularly in the United States, face regarding capital preservation over multiple generations. We found that over the last decade more charitable foundations chose an endowment approach to manage their portfolios to achieve a goal of sustainable philanthropy.

This white paper addressed a number of challenges that charitable foundations around the world, particularly in the United States, face regarding capital preservation over multiple generations. We found that over the last decade more charitable foundations chose an endowment approach to manage their portfolios to achieve a goal of sustainable philanthropy.

This white paper addresses the importance of being diligent on asset manager due diligence for the Endowment Approach in order to avoid investing in fraudulent asset managers and analyzes over one hundred past asset manager fraud cases from 1998 to 2014 to understand patterns and techniques of fraudulent managers. The study found that (1) there were a far more hedge fund-like asset manager cases than private equity funds or mutual funds, (2) there were five main fraud techniques used frequently by asset manager frauds and (3) frauds are becoming more sophisticated while more allocators are conducting operational due diligence. The Endowment Approach has embedded advantage to avoid asset manager frauds, however, proper and careful due diligence is still important to achieve the objectives of the Endowment Approach.

This white paper addresses the importance of being diligent on asset manager due diligence for the Endowment Approach in order to avoid investing in fraudulent asset managers and analyzes over one hundred past asset manager fraud cases from 1998 to 2014 to understand patterns and techniques of fraudulent managers. The study found that (1) there were a far more hedge fund-like asset manager cases than private equity funds or mutual funds, (2) there were five main fraud techniques used frequently by asset manager frauds and (3) frauds are becoming more sophisticated while more allocators are conducting operational due diligence. The Endowment Approach has embedded advantage to avoid asset manager frauds, however, proper and careful due diligence is still important to achieve the objectives of the Endowment Approach.

Read on our Substack if you are interested in our sharing.

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