Crewcial Partners LLC (“Crewcial” or the “Firm”), formerly known as Colonial Consulting,
LLC, is a Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) registered investment adviser with its
principal place of business in New York, NY. Colonial Consulting Corporation, Inc. (“the
Corporation”), the founding firm, began conducting business in 1980. Through an Asset
Purchase Agreement signed in July 2004, the management of the Corporation purchased the
assets of the Corporation through a newly created entity: Colonial Consulting, LLC. Effective
October 2020, Colonial Consulting, LLC changed its name to Crewcial Partners LLC. Crewcial
offers a broad range of investment consulting and investment management services. Crewcial’s
clients consist principally of endowments, foundations, charitable organizations, and other not-
for-profit organizations, but also include other types of clients, including pension plans and high
net worth individuals. Crewcial tailors its investment advice to the particular needs of each
client. Generally, the Firm does not engage in individual stock selection but rather, principally
focuses on assisting clients in selecting and investing with institutional quality private
investment funds (including hedge funds, private equity funds, real estate funds, and other types
of pooled investment vehicles), U.S. and international mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds
(“ETFs”). The Firm also advises clients with respect to the hiring, retention, and termination of
independent third-party investment managers (“Third-Party Managers” and together with
managers of mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and other private funds, “investment
managers”). Clients may impose reasonable restrictions on investing in certain securities or
types of securities.
The majority of the Firm’s owners are Charles C. Georgalas, Michael A. Miller and Dine Grullon.
Investment Consulting Services
For more than thirty years, Crewcial has provided a broad range of investment consulting services
to its clients. Crewcial’s investment consulting services include, but are not limited to, the
following:
• Establishment of investment objectives, goals, and restrictions
• Asset allocation studies
• Investment manager searches, due diligence, and risk assessment
• Calculation and verification of performance returns.
• Monthly portfolio analysis/monitoring, including risk assessment
• Comprehensive quarterly reporting
• Investment manager communication and monitoring
• Customized projects
• Donor Forums
• Educational Forums
• Portfolio transitions
The Firm’s consulting process begins with meeting its clients to understand their financial
goals, investment objectives, and risk tolerance. This review helps Crewcial to gain a
greater understanding of the client and guides the Firm to a strategy that is tailored to the client.
Based on these discussions, Crewcial produces a proposed investment policy statement (“IPS”)
which is distributed to the client for review and comment. Crewcial spends considerable time
evaluating a client’s return objectives, risk tolerance, and any disconnect that may exist between
the two. All interactions between Crewcial and the client are interactive in the sense that the
Firm incorporates all comments and feedback, creates multiple iterations of the IPS, if necessary,
and makes all necessary efforts to align the needs and expectations of the client with
the IPS.
After the client has adopted an appropriate IPS, Crewcial assists clients with asset allocation
decisions as well as review and recommendation of investment managers, as described more
fully in Item 8 below.
Once Crewcial makes investment recommendations to its investment consulting clients, the Firm
does not effect such transactions although the Firm may provide assistance with the
implementation of its recommendations. Nonetheless, implementation of its investment
recommendations, including the purchase and sale of securities and the hiring or termination of
Third-Party Managers, is the sole responsibility of the client.
Investment Management Services
Crewcial also provides investment management services to certain of its clients on a discretionary
basis whereby the Firm will take responsibility for implementing its investment
recommendations without prior approval from its clients. This type of arrangement can make
sense for clients who do not have expertise in-house, want to outsource day-to-day investment
transactions, or simply have limited staff. Crewcial’s approach to its investment management
services is substantially similar to its approach with respect to its investment consulting services
in that the Firm begins by seeking to understand the client’s financial goals, investment objectives,
and risk tolerance which inform the preparation of the client’s IPS. The Firm then makes
investment recommendations and decisions based on the client’s IPS and any investment
guidelines or restrictions provided by the client. The Firm then assists with implementing such
recommendations and decisions, which includes effecting transactions for the purchase and sale
of exchange-traded securities, completing subscription documents for clients’ investments in
private funds, and working with Third-Party Managers to delegate responsibility for
management of clients’ assets. When delegating management of client assets to a Third-Party
Manager, in some circumstances, Crewcial may provide the selected Third-Party Manager with
the client’s IPS, after which the Third-Party Manager then would be responsible for constructing
the client’s portfolio based on the client’s needs as delineated in the IPS. In such situations,
Crewcial will monitor the performance of Third-Party Managers to ensure that they are consistent
with the client’s needs as described in the IPS. In other situations, a Third-Party Manager may
manage the client’s account employing the strategy implemented by a private fund employing
the same strategy. In all situations where Crewcial delegates management of client assets to
private funds and Third-Party Managers, clients should review the fund offering documents and
the Brochure or other disclosure document filed by such Third-Party Manager.
Other Advisory Services
Crewcial also occasionally performs a de minimis amount of special project work (for example,
asset allocation review, spending policy study, investment manager review). This work is
provided on a flat-fee basis, usually for non-consulting clients.
Assets Under Management
As of December 31, 2023, the amount of the Firm’s discretionary regulatory assets under
management was $912,460,060. The amount of the Firm’s non-discretionary regulatory assets
under management was $196,098,579. The Firm’s Total Assets Under Management, which
includes unfunded investment manager commitments, was approximately $1,108,558,639.