Mandate Selection
We choose our mandates. Each one is reviewed by our senior team before an engagement is signed and before any investor hears of the raise.
How we select
Senior review comes first, and full diligence begins only when fit is settled on both sides.
First conversation
Thirty minutes by video with Abbas Chothia, our Client Advisor, on the raise, the timeline and the constraints in front of it.
Senior review
David Hunter and Anas Ansar test the raise against the questions an investment committee will ask. Our answer follows within 48 to 72 hours.
Diligence
Full diligence begins once fit and timing are agreed on both sides, and scope and terms are confirmed in writing before any work starts.
What we look at
The questions a committee will ask, asked first by us
Team and track recordWho makes the decisions, and can the results be attributed to them?
How long the team has worked together, who holds the decisions, and which results the current team made. A record that cannot be attributed is discounted in committee.
Strategy and pipelineWhy this strategy, and where will the capital go?
Where the strategy sits in its market, what the team brings to it, and which opportunities the first part of the fund will finance.
Terms and alignmentDo the terms hold up in front of a committee?
Management terms, the manager's own commitment and the governance an allocator will test, read against the market for the strategy.
Operations and reportingCan the firm report the way institutions expect?
Administration, valuation and reporting, and the people behind them. An institution needs to see that the fund will report as it expects from the first quarter.
Note: Mandates we accept generally run from US$100 million to several billion, on equity raises and the sale of a business.
The answer
Our decision on a mandate follows within 48 to 72 hours of senior review, with reasons.
A decision with reasons
When the answer is no, we say so and give the reasons. A principal should know where a raise stands.
Equity only
Fund commitments, growth equity, equity in real estate and infrastructure projects, and the sale of a business.
Prepared first
No investor sees the raise until the materials and terms answer the questions a committee asks.
Held in confidence
Live mandates are never named. Asked who we work with, we give sector and size only.
The same review
Every mandate passes the same review, whatever its size and whoever brings it.
