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We do not take a fee. We take a small share of what we help build. In return the house outfits its captains. The old families always did it this way; we are merely giving the modern equivalents back their honest names. What follows, set down here as a Geleitbrief, is not a benefits package but a charter: four articles to which both sides hold themselves so long as an entrepreneur sails under our flag.
Three of the four articles are in force from the first day. The third — the keys to our houses and our cars — is a question of trust and ripens with time. We grant it when the moment makes itself known; we do not announce it, and we do not negotiate it.
Article I · The card of black metal
Anyone can claim to have money. An American Express Centurion the concierge at the Mandarin Oriental accepts without raising an eyebrow can only be produced by someone who has done their homework. We hold the master account in Vaduz and issue each of our entrepreneurs a card with their own name on it. Behind it sits a shared credit line, set by the house and underwritten by the house; each captain draws on it as a first officer would draw on the ship’s purse — with the discipline that comes with that.
The card is not a credit limit; it is a token of recognition. It saves you the first twenty minutes of every conversation in which you would otherwise have to prove what the other side already sees. Whoever has not met you yet knows in three seconds whom they are dealing with. Whoever has met you had already thought as much.
Article II · First class, paid in miles, not in cash
We sit at desks. You are our eyes outside. We do not want to see the world through a browser. The entrepreneurs under our flag therefore do not fly at the back. Row 42 with headphones on serves no one; four hours in the First Class Terminal in Frankfurt, the Polaris Lounge in Newark, The Pier in Hong Kong or — quietest and best of them all — The Private Room of Singapore Airlines at Changi Terminal 3 is the actual meeting of the day. Those rooms are where the people you will inevitably do business with already walk in and out — only a few months earlier than the rest of the market.
Payment is a mix of miles and cash, optimised against the ratio of revenue fare to award fare on the day. The house works the maths out for you — a competent booking desk that knows what it is doing is the lowest rung of any family administration. We book in your name, you accrue on your status, the house carries the difference. A tight connection in economy is the exception, not the rule; it happens, and it is nothing for which one apologises.
Article III · Keys and berths
Anyone who turns sixty and loses a Saturday in Berlin to a broken rental-car door understands in ten seconds what this article is about. We are not too refined for poor hotels; we are too old for them. Time, which at our age renews itself more sparingly than it once did, is the one currency in which we will not consent to do bad arithmetic. We therefore place at the disposal of our entrepreneurs a small, carefully-chosen house fleet, in places we ourselves like to be:
- Arosa
- Haus Jelen. A concept in the making. At Poststrasse 33 we are preparing, over the coming months, a retreat for the entrepreneurs under our flag — a few days of mountain air, a desk by the window, and the occasional walk with Anna Jelen, who has brought us the valley over the years. Reachable by the Arosa railway, two-and-a-half hours from Vaduz.
- Vaduz
-
The house car. An Audi S7 Sportback in the
underground garage of the Gubserhaus, near the
Fürstenbank, available at any hour. A meeting in
St. Gallen, Zurich, Munich or Milan: take the key
from the board and drive.
Office space. In the same building, at Herrengasse 30, a desk of your own for each of ours, with a view of the castle and a cup of coffee that is not served in cardboard. - Singapore
- Grab Premium & Executive, without limit. Asia has solved the car better than Europe has — not by giving you keys, but by giving you a black car at the kerb in four minutes. Our corporate Grab Business account covers all rides in the upper two tiers for any of ours moving through Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta or Bangkok.
We do not hand the key to a house out on the first day. We hand it over when the moment makes itself known — usually in the second or third year of working together, often after a weekend spent in person. We do not negotiate it. Whoever asks has not yet understood that it is not for sale.
Article IV · Keeping a hand on the helm
Whoever has been the best at a craft for twenty years begins to be bored — and boredom is the most under-rated hazard for a person carrying responsibility. The house therefore keeps every entrepreneur under its flag in practice, on its own account. Concretely:
- Tuition
- An annual learning budget per captain, which may be spent on a sabbatical week at INSEAD, an executive course at Stanford, a language tutor in Milan or a private AI tutor — to the captain’s own taste, without justification owed to the house.
- Reading
- Four books a year, sent by the house to each. One on the craft, one on history, one on natural science, and one no one would have expected. You are not obliged to read them. We read them too.
- Workshop
- Twice a year, a closed workshop with the other entrepreneurs under our flag. A weekend. No talks, no agenda. A question on Friday evening, two answers by Sunday morning.
The sharp mind is the only piece of equipment an entrepreneur does not borrow from us — only the means with which to keep it sharp.
If you would like to sail under our flag,
write us a letter — see
Office Hours.
We answer personally, usually within 48 hours.