Capital Protection Advisory
Capital That Withstands Every Storm
Risk-managed advisory designed to keep your wealth intact through market cycles, regulatory shifts, and generational transitions.
Explore Our Strategies
Preservation, Not Speculation
At Hartwell & Mercer, we begin with a single conviction: protecting what you have built is more demanding than building it in the first place. Our approach centres on identifying and quantifying the risks your portfolio actually faces — currency exposure, counterparty concentration, regulatory change, liquidity gaps — and then constructing layered structures that absorb those shocks before they become losses. Working from our Prešov office, we advise clients across Slovakia and neighbouring Central European markets, combining the rigour of institutional risk analysis with the discretion and continuity you expect from a long-standing private adviser. Every mandate is bespoke; no two clients share the same risk profile, time horizon, or succession plan.
Four Pillars of Risk-Managed Wealth
Each pillar addresses a distinct vulnerability that can erode accumulated capital over time.
Insurance Wrappers
We structure unit-linked and life-settlement insurance wrappers that ring-fence assets from creditors, reduce estate-transfer friction, and maintain full investment flexibility within a legally protected envelope. Suitable for clients holding €500,000 or more in investable assets.
Diversified Allocations
Our risk-managed portfolio construction moves beyond simple asset-class diversification. We model correlations under stress scenarios, apply maximum drawdown constraints, and rebalance dynamically so that your portfolio never concentrates risk in a single geography or sector without deliberate intent.
Fiduciary Structures
Private foundation arrangements, Slovak and Austrian trust-equivalent structures, and cross-border fiduciary mandates give your wealth a legal home that is independent of personal or business balance sheets — an essential buffer for entrepreneurs, physicians, and senior executives.
Succession Planning
We map the generational transfer of assets before it becomes urgent, coordinating with notaries, tax advisers, and family members to ensure continuity of governance. Clients who plan succession early avoid the disputes, tax drag, and illiquidity that derail unprepared estates.
“When my manufacturing business was acquired in 2021, I suddenly had liquidity I had never managed before. Hartwell & Mercer mapped every risk I was carrying — currency, counterparty, inheritance tax — within three weeks and proposed a structure that gave me genuine peace of mind. Two years later, not a single scenario they warned me about went unhedged.”
Ján Kováč, Košice — former owner, precision parts manufacturer
Ready to Review Your Exposure?
A no-obligation diagnostic conversation costs you one hour and could clarify the risks your current arrangements are not addressing.
Schedule a ConsultationRooted in Central Europe, Structured for Stability
Slovakia's regulatory environment sits within the EU framework, giving clients access to cross-border structures that combine local legal familiarity with the depth of European financial law. Prešov, while less prominent than Bratislava, offers a quieter advisory practice where senior partners — not junior associates — lead every client relationship. Our terracotta-cream office on Hlavná street reflects this ethos: warm, considered, and built to last rather than to impress. We do not manage hedge funds, we do not pursue performance fees, and we do not recommend instruments we cannot explain in plain language. That disciplined restraint is the foundation of every risk-managed mandate we have delivered over the past fourteen years.