Methodology

Version chain first

We identify the executed agreement family, later amendments or restatements, current effective terms, renewal or non-renewal evidence, disclosed termination and any successor structure. A superseded or expired agreement is not used as the current target.

• Primary: executed agreement, amendment, restatement, renewal / non-renewal evidence, compensation waiver, termination, settlement or successor agreement filed with the SEC.
• Currentness: latest 8-K, 10-Q, 10-K, proxy or other issuer filing describing present terms, provider status or compensation status.
• Governance: related-party policy, committee charter, proxy disclosure and ownership / Board relationship facts.
• Outcome: issuer filings describing fee resets, pauses, waivers, non-payment, non-renewal, renegotiation, internalization, replacement, termination, settlement or litigation.
• Transition controls: disclosed asset-transfer, reconciliation, accounting or approval controls arising from provider changes.
• Secondary public materials: used only when attributable and clearly labeled as secondary.

Candidate peers are screened before deep comparison. Inclusion depends on the economic role and contract stack, not just the asset or headline percentage.

• Discretionary asset management is separated from strategic advisory work.
• Staking, custody, derivatives, treasury execution and capital-markets services are identified separately.
• Related-party and unrelated-party structures are tagged explicitly.
• Asset type, AUM scale, payment denominator and fee mechanics are considered.
• Material non-comparability is disclosed rather than averaged away.

Where the contract permits it, remaining-term or liquidated-damages exposure is shown separately from recurring fee economics instead of being hidden inside a single percentage comparison. Contractual compensation rights are also separated from their current exercise state: active, paused, waived, revocable or accruing unpaid.

A fee formula can become contractually effective before a public filing shows the first accrual or payment under that formula. Effective date and observed realization are therefore stored as separate facts. Passing an effective date does not by itself prove that a particular dollar amount accrued, was invoiced or was paid.

Agreement status is not reduced to a binary “active / terminated” field. Public records can show materially different intermediate states, so the stress test records them separately:

A fee pause does not by itself terminate the agreement. A compensation waiver does not necessarily delete the contractual right; if the waiver can be revoked, its notice mechanics and as-of date are recorded separately. A newly effective fee schedule is not treated as an observed accrual or payment when the latest public financial period predates the change. Zero funded assets do not by themselves prove termination. Non-payment does not by itself stop accrual. Expiration / non-renewal is distinct from early termination and may have different economics. A terminated contract may still have unresolved settlement or surviving-rights questions. The label used in a client pack is therefore tied to the latest primary-source evidence rather than inferred from strategy headlines.

Public outcomes are used as controls, not as predictions. The stress test records observable fee resets, effective-date transitions, pauses, waivers, unpaid accruals, non-renewals, internalizations, negotiated exits, settlements, litigation and replacement structures. This can show that similarly priced agreements produced very different lifecycle economics — or that a theoretically heavy exit clause was actually renegotiated into a different result.

The pack may state that a provision sits above, below or within an observable public range, that a contract stack differs materially from selected public comparables, or that public precedents show particular renegotiation / exit outcomes.

It does not state that a contract is fair, unfair, lawful, unlawful, fiduciary-compliant, accounting-compliant or arm's-length. Those are conclusions for the client and its legal / financial / accounting advisers.

• Current contract version and provider status rechecked.
• Renewal / non-renewal status rechecked separately from termination.
• Funded-asset, strategy, fee-accrual, payment and compensation-waiver status rechecked separately.
• Fee effective date rechecked separately from the first publicly observed post-change accrual, invoice or payment.
• Waiver revocation mechanics and as-of date rechecked when applicable.
• Peer inclusion logic rechecked.
• Fee formulas, hurdle / HWM mechanics and annualized examples recalculated.
• Termination / remaining-term mechanics reconciled to executed language where available.
• Material related-party, governance and outcome facts reconciled to primary sources.
• Every material factual claim linked to a source.
• Unknowns and unavailable information listed explicitly.