Advisory for families and the businesses behind them
Healthier budgets. Less debt. More equity.
Most advisors look at the household or the company. Altum looks at both, because in an owner-managed family they are one set of numbers. Where the money actually goes. How the debt comes down. What the business will be worth when it matters.
Who this is for
Altum works with about ten clients. That is deliberate. The work involves reading a family's actual bank exports and a company's actual ledger, and that is not something you do at volume.
Families with a business attached
Where the household budget and the company's cash flow are the same conversation, and no one has yet put them on the same page.
Families across more than one country
Income in one currency, school fees in another, property in a third. Work spans Europe, the United States and Latin America, in four languages.
If you are looking for portfolio management alone, Altum is probably not the right fit. The work here starts earlier than that.
The work, measured
Illustrative sample based on the shape of a typical engagement. Figures are representative, not a specific client.
Groceries
−$710
in one month: the biggest lever, moved the right way
Dining out
−$305
same month
Shopping
−58%
against the start of the year
Uncategorised
$0
three months running. Numbers you can trust
How it works
- 01
The baseline
You send exports from your bank and your accounting file. You get back a baseline document: where the money actually goes, with nothing dressed up and no judgement attached. Most clients find at least one number in it they did not expect.
- 02
The monthly review
Every month, a document in the same shape: what moved, what it means, and the wins and the watch-items in plain language. Categories that were vague get proper headings, because comparisons are only trustworthy once the data is.
- 03
The plan, and the guardrails
A spending cap you can actually live with, a debt sequence, and a savings target with a date attached. Not a budget spreadsheet, a small set of rules the household runs itself against, reviewed each quarter.
- 04
For the business: readable books
Owner draws in the right place. Related-party arrangements documented. Client concentration measured rather than assumed. The aim is books an investor, a lender or a buyer can read without a translator, and a valuation that reflects it.
How the plan holds
A budget that depends on willpower fails in month three. These are the rules that make a household plan survive contact with real life. They are agreed once, in writing, and they do not require anyone to ask permission.
One total, not eight budgets
The monthly cap is the only figure that cannot be exceeded. How it divides between groceries, clothes, gifts and the rest is the household's decision, not the advisor's. If one group runs high, another runs low.
Groceries are managed weekly
A weekly figure can be corrected mid-month. A monthly total can only be reported after the fact. The biggest category in most household budgets is the one that most needs a live number.
Underspend belongs to the family
A month under cap carries the difference forward. Three consecutive months at or under cap return a quarter of the underspend as discretionary money. That is a standing term of the plan, not something granted case by case.
Month by month, the path reveals itself.
The monthly review
Each engagement is anchored by a monthly document in this shape: the trend, the categories, and what to do about them.
For a family
Monthly spending review
Illustrative sample · figures are representative
Total household expenses: monthly trend
Before engagementUnder management
Wins, the genuine positives
Groceries and dining out both fell. Shopping is still well below where it started. Uncategorized spending remains at zero, which is what makes these comparisons trustworthy.
Watch, worth understanding
July is the highest month since February. Much of it is seasonal, but the running rate has stepped up rather than settled, and tuition looks recurring rather than one-off. Confirming how many instalments remain would make a real difference to planning the rest of the year.
For a company
First half summary
January to June, against the same six months last year
Illustrative sample · figures are representative
Sales
$2.72M
January to June, up 84% on last year
Profit from the work
$1.19M
more than double last year
Kept per $1 of sales
54c
was 45 cents last year
Owed at 30 June
$810k
down $265k in a month
Sales by quarter, thousands
Last yearThis year
Wins, the genuine positives
Sales nearly doubled, up 84%, and both quarters grew at about the same rate, so this is steady rather than one strong month. The business kept 54 cents of every sales dollar after paying the crew and the cost of the work, against 45 cents last year. The credit line is fully repaid, $228,000 of it out of trading cash, and interest fell from $24,500 to roughly $3,000.
Watch, worth understanding
Three clients account for three quarters of the $810,000 owed. The largest owes $268,000, and the second is the only account that went up last month. About 80% of the equipment value is used up on paper, and there is no credit line in place for the replacements that are coming.
What you actually receive
Three illustrative samples, in the format clients receive. The figures are invented; the structure and the commentary are exactly what an engagement produces.
The offering
Taking clients
Private Advisory
For a family, a company, or the two together
- A full baseline: where the money goes, month by month, with nothing rounded away
- Monthly review documents in plain language
- A spending cap and savings plan with a date attached, reviewed quarterly
- Debt sequencing, including which loans should never be refinanced, and why
- Property and cash-flow planning around a purchase, a move or a sale
- Company books cleaned up for a lender, an investor or a buyer
- A valuation range, and the specific work that would move it
- Coordination with your accountant and tax advisor. Altum does not replace them
In development, waitlist open
Family Budget
The monthly spending review as a self-serve web product: expenses, debt payoff, family equity.
Join the waitlist →Company Budget
Budgeting and clear monthly reporting for small and mid-size businesses, on the path to investor-ready books.
Join the waitlist →Who you'll work with
Guy Paul Bodart
Principal, Altum Wealth Advisory · Panama City
Fifteen years in private banking, then thirty running companies. It means the same person reads your company's margin trend and your household's grocery line, and treats them as the same problem, because they are.
Guy's career began in capital markets in 1982: Merrill Lynch in Geneva, Crédit Commercial de France in New York, then vice-president of private banking at Banque Nationale de Paris, where he founded and ran a department serving high-net-worth families across the Andean region and Central America, building USD 45 million under management.
He then spent three decades running consumer businesses across Latin America: managing director of Chanel Mexico and Chanel Brazil, executive vice-president of Grupo Ultra, today chief executive of a multi-country distribution company. He serves on boards where financial governance matters, including preparing a company for outside investment with investor-grade reporting.
Altum is his independent practice: ten households and closely held businesses across Europe, the United States and Latin America, with approximately USD 20 million under advice. The work spans the full financial picture rather than investments alone: budgeting and cash flow, debt reduction, equity building, investor readiness. It is deliberately small. The person reading your bank statements is the person with forty years behind him, not an analyst on his behalf.
1982
in the markets since
10
households and businesses advised
~$20M
under advice
4
working languages
MBA, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University · Series 7 (New York, 1987) · Guest lecturer, Vanderbilt · Lecturer, Universidad del Istmo, Panama
English · French · Spanish · Portuguese
Equity, compounded
Wealth is built month by month. Visible, measured, yours.
Book a free intro conversationStart a conversation
Tell us a little about your situation: family, company, or both. The first conversation is free and without obligation, and nothing is expected of you afterwards.
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