Folder 08 · income
Agency. Not a prop book.
A family office should underwrite fees on flow, not inventory, overnight FX or ships. The house takes a disclosed slice each time a tonne is matched, escrowed, converted, manifested or seated. It does not bet.
Income on this case
| Stream | Revenue | Share | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| Matching | $3.2m | 36% | $2.8m |
| Escrow | $1.2m | 14% | $744,000 |
| FX conversion | $384,000 | 4% | $284,160 |
| Shipping and docs | $384,000 | 4% | $211,200 |
| Seats | $3.3m | 37% | $2.7m |
| Tape | $400,000 | 5% | $364,000 |
| Total | $8.8m | 100% | $7.1m |
40 bps blended, two-sided
Matching
Contribution margin 88%
Agency. The house is not the other side. Illiquid corridors 25 bps each way; copper-like 10. Floor $1,500 a ticket.
15 bps of notional
Escrow
Contribution margin 62%
Open, hold and dual-control release in one. Client money stays at the correspondent. Dispute is extra.
12 bps on the converted slice
FX conversion
Contribution margin 74%
Disclosed markup over correspondent mid. G10 tighter, CNH/AED wider. No overnight book. No arb.
8 bps on attached cargo
Shipping and docs
Contribution margin 55%
Manifest fee, eBL issuance, 3% agency on ocean freight we introduce. We do not buy space.
$65k blend / member
Seats
Contribution margin 82%
Annual. Producer $45k · trader $80k · sovereign $120k. KYB $12k in year one. Seats should cover compliance burn.
$8k / member run-rate
Tape
Contribution margin 91%
Executed prints, not a Fastmarkets clone. API to funds and offtakers who want what actually traded.
What a family office should underwrite
- Seats pay for KYB, sanctions and dual-use screening before a tonne moves.
- Matching and escrow pay for the venue. 55 bps together, two-sided, on flow — not inventory.
- FX is a conversion markup. If the P&L starts to look like a hedge fund, the board has failed.
- Shipping is an introduction and a file. Buying bunkers or space puts working capital on the wrong side of the table.
- The tape is the only SaaS that compounds. Prints beat assessments once the book is real.
What we will not earn
- Bid–offer as principal. No offtake book, no warehouse long, no “we’ll take the other side.”
- Overnight FX. No carry, no cross, no unhedged nostro.
- Freight as carrier. No charter, no NVOCC inventory.
- Interest on commingled cash. Client money never sits in the house operating book.
- Token float. No metal coins, no retail.
Later, and only later: arrangement fees for inventory finance against escrowed title. Fifty bps of someone else’s balance sheet. Not ours.
Illustrative economics. Not a forecast, not an offer of securities, not a promise of take-rate. Production tariffs go in the member rulebook.