We provide customized investment advisory services to institutional investors through a full-service solution, including:

Investment Planning

Through our approach to investment planning, we help our clients strategically position their portfolios for success.  Unlike traditional asset classes, which emphasize diversification in developing portfolios, private equity is an inefficient market, which we believe necessitates a different approach.  Given the disparity in returns between top performing and average performing private equity managers, our approach to portfolio construction emphasizes opportunistic manager selection.  Rather than force-fitting investment selection to predetermined sub-asset allocations, we research and proactively seek best-in-class managers, which we believe is the key to building successful portfolios.  To manage market timing risk, we utilize a proprietary commitment pacing model and seek to commit capital consistently from year to year.  Further, we establish portfolio-level constraints to avoid imprudent manager, strategy and region exposures.

Manager Research & Investment Due Diligence

The objective of our manager research process is to identify and to gain access to the best private equity managers.  In certain market segments, the best managers are widely acknowledged; in other market segments, the best groups are relatively unknown.  We proactively meet with established firms and continually conduct research to uncover exceptional managers not yet recognized by the broader market.  Our due diligence process is continuous, as we develop insights on a manager's team, competitive positioning and investment performance over years, rather than a fundraising period.  In evaluating managers, we leverage our entire team in conducting investment, operational and legal due diligence, with the goal of selecting managers that can generate attractive risk-adjusted returns.

Operational and Legal Due Diligence

Operational and legal due diligence are integral to our investment process.  The objective of operational due diligence is to avoid investments where the operational risks are too high or to identify solutions to reduce the level of risk.  Our operational due diligence entails investigating operations personnel, reporting and administration practices, conflicts of interests, legal liabilities, business continuation, risk management and internal controls.   The objective of legal due diligence is to align interests of the fund manager and limited partners through negotiation of fee structures and manager incentives, and to ensure good governance mechanisms are in place through negotiation of investment parameters, and suspension and termination rights.  Our legal due diligence process entails reviewing manager documentation, comparing terms and conditions to industry standards and negotiating terms and conditions.

Monitoring, Compliance Checking & Reporting

Monitoring, compliance checking, and reporting are critical components of our commitment to applying industry best practices in portfolio management.  Our monitoring, legal and investment professionals regularly conduct onsite manager interviews and conference calls to closely track investment performance, team updates and market developments. 

We believe active oversight can help guard against asset mismanagement.  We monitor compliance with investment agreement terms by closely reviewing capital notices for appropriate use of capital, waterfall allocations and fee calculations.  Should an issue arise during our ongoing monitoring, it is brought to the attention of our investment committee.

On an ongoing basis, we perform both qualitative and quantitative analysis of performance against expectations and versus peers.  Our quarterly performance reports combine our insights on industry capital flow and valuation trends, with attribution analysis on individual managers and total portfolio performance.  All investment data and documents are accessible through our on-line client reporting portal.

Market Research

We regularly publish industry news compilations, capital flow and valuation trend reports, and educational white papers.   A core component of our investment process is top-down manager research. We hold over 500 face-to-face manager meetings around the globe each year allowing us to maintain fresh insights on market opportunities and challenges. While current market conditions are carefully considered, given the long-term nature of the asset class, our top-down research aims to assess the relative attractiveness of investment strategies on a world-wide basis and the competitive positioning within the universe of managers.  Ultimately, the goal of our market research is to make better informed investment decisions.