SVRN Asset Management LLC, was founded in 2015 by the firm’s sole owner, Samuel Lee. Prior to founding the firm,
Sam was an exchange-traded fund strategist at Morningstar, Inc., an investment research and data firm, where he
specialized in asset allocation.
The firm was originally organized as an Illinois LLC under the legal name “Severian Asset Management, LLC”. Sam later
moved his primary residence and the firm from Chicago, IL to Austin, TX. In February of 2023, the firm was converted
from an Illinois LLC to a Texas LLC. The legal name of the firm was also changed to “SVRN Asset Management, LLC”,
a business name that the firm has been using for several years. We are organized to minimize conflicts of interest: Our
only business is providing investment advice as a fiduciary and our only source of income is our client fees.
Services
Our main service is asset management, where we craft for you an investment strategy that attempts to achieve the
highest expected returns after fees and taxes, given your goals and constraints.
Our service begins with a series of consultations (either in person or through telecommunication) where we explore your
goals, finances, behavioral makeup, time horizon, and so on. We pay close attention to how much money you can lose
without derailing you from your goals (risk capacity), how capable you are of experiencing losses with equanimity (risk
tolerance), and how much you care about keeping your returns close to that of common benchmarks (tracking error
tolerance).
We attempt to identify major risks to your financial and human capital, and recommend ways to mitigate them, including
buying insurance, selling down concentrated equity holdings, and matching assets to liabilities.
If asked, we will analyze your existing financial services and propose changes that will either lower costs or increase the
value you obtain from them. Some simple but surprisingly profitable changes include using better credit cards, reviewing
your insurance coverages, and switching to higher-yielding bank accounts. We will even advise you on precautions to take
to mitigate the risks of fraud, cybersecurity breaches, and identity theft. Our goal is to be as helpful as possible in all
matters
pertaining to money and risk.
We include financial planning gratis as we believe it is unwise to expend extraordinary efforts trying to beat the market (an
uncertain and difficult endeavor) while neglecting simple, surefire ways to make money. We also manage two pooled
investment funds that we make available to certain qualified clients.
We are not estate, tax or insurance specialists; we will work with your existing providers or help you find them.
Restrictions
We restrict ourselves to selecting individual stocks and bonds, certificates of deposit, mutual funds, exchange-traded funds,
closed-end funds, and hedge funds. We expect most of our investment selections to be mutual funds and exchange-traded
funds.
Customization
Our service is customized to account for your behavioral makeup, investment knowledge, health, family structure, human
capital, tax situation, spending needs, liquidity needs, and financial assets and liabilities. You may impose restrictions on
investing in certain securities or types of securities.
Fiduciary Standards
Because our firm is a registered investment adviser, we are required to meet certain fiduciary standards when providing
investment advice to clients. Additionally, when we provide investment advice related to a retirement plan account or an
individual retirement account, we are considered fiduciaries within the meaning of Title I of the Employee Retirement
Income Security Act and/or the Internal Revenue Code, as applicable, which are laws governing retirement accounts. As
such, we are required to act in your best interest and not put our interest ahead of yours, even though our compensation
creates some conflicts with your interests in that the more you have us manage, the more we can earn. Our clients however
are under no obligation to use services recommended by our associated persons. Furthermore, we believe that our
recommendations are in the best interests of our clients and are consistent with our clients’ needs.
Wrap Program
We do not participate in wrap programs.
Assets Under Management
As of February 29, 2024, we had approximately $131,890,845 in discretionary assets under management, and $6,033,523
in non-discretionary assets under management.