The Portfolio Surgeon

Fixing structural portfolio failures others don’t see — and others don’t own.

Most portfolios don’t fail loudly. They Fail Quietly.

Not through bad asset selection, but through structural leakage:

  • Hedges that no longer match the risk they are meant to neutralise
  • Overlays that behave differently outside the regime they were designed for
  • Capital trapped in collateral, margin, and conservative construction
  • Governance processes that look robust but miss second-order effects

Returns bleed slowly. Risk accumulates invisibly. Everyone thinks the portfolio is “fully hedged”.

That is where intervention is required.

What a Portfolio Surgeon actually does

A Portfolio Surgeon does not manage assets.
A Portfolio Surgeon intervenes when structure, not strategy, is the problem.

This work sits in the gaps between:

  • Portfolio construction and execution
  • Treasury and investment decision-making
  • Risk policy and real-world market behaviour

The focus is not theory.
The focus is how portfolios behave under live market conditions.

When we are typically called in

We are usually engaged when:

  • Hedges exist, but do not respond as expected
  • Refinancing or restructuring introduces hidden basis risk
  • Derivative overlays have grown stale, fragmented, or misaligned
  • Capital efficiency has degraded without anyone owning the problem
  • Teams sense something is wrong, but cannot isolate the cause

These issues rarely trigger alarms.
They surface as unexplained drag, inconsistent outcomes, or “acceptable but disappointing” results.

We are also called in earlier in the lifecycle, when teams want hedging and risk structures designed correctly before long-dated decisions are locked in.

Our Capabilities

How intervention works

Intervention starts with diagnosis, not solutions.

We:

  • Map the portfolio as it actually behaves, not as it is described
  • Trace risk ownership across instruments, maturities, and governance layers
  • Identify where economic intent and structural reality diverge
  • Isolate repeatable failure modes rather than one-off symptoms

Only then is remediation designed – deliberately.

Execution is deliberate, scoped, and aligned to real constraints:

  • Liquidity
  • Accounting
  • Regulation
  • Operational capacity

No generic overlays. No template fixes.

What this approach avoids

This approach deliberately avoids:

  • Product-led selling
  • Pre-packaged strategies
  • “Optimisation” without accountability
  • Adding complexity to justify activity

If the structure is sound, we do nothing.
If intervention is required, it is precise.

Where this shows up in practice

This philosophy underpins all Para Bellum engagements, including:

  • Hedge rebuilds
  • Capital drag audits
  • Structuring-as-a-service mandates

It is also why our case studies focus on failure modes rather than marketing outcomes.

This lens governs every Para Bellum engagement – from diagnostic review through hedge rebuilds, capital drag audits, and retained structuring mandates.

If this way of thinking resonates

The next step is to look at how it applies to a specific portfolio.

From there, we decide whether intervention is warranted.