Stan Miranda gets by with a little help from his friends. Backed by a range of wealthy investors, including Lord Rothschild, his Partners Capital has pushed assets from zero to $6bn (€4.9bn) in five years.

Large client portfolios have outperformed their equity/bond benchmark by an annualised 3.6 percentage points over the period. The ups and downs of 2008 to 2009 saw similar outperformance though the range of returns was wide.