OUR FIRM

We focus exclusively on private market strategies by making investments in professionally managed funds and direct co-investments.

About Us

610.822.0500

INFO@FRANKLINPARKLLC.COM

ABOUT US

Founded in 2003, Franklin Park is a provider of advisory and investment management services for institutional investors in the private markets. Our primary purpose is to uncover and access best-in-class fund managers for our client portfolios. We seek managers capable of generating high absolute and excess returns over the long term. At Franklin Park, we are proactive in our manager research and travel the world seeking funds in which to invest.

We are an independent firm, owned and controlled by our employees. Our advisory practice was launched in 2003. We launched our first discretionary account in 2007. We launched our venture capital fund-of-funds program in 2008, our international fund-of-funds program launched in 2011, and our co-investment program in 2012.

Franklin Park’s investment professionals have extensive experience in sourcing, analyzing, negotiating and monitoring private market investments. Our 11 senior investment principals have, on average, 18 years of private market investment experience.

OUR

SERVICES

Franklin Park is a provider of advisory and investment management services for institutional investors in the private equity markets asset class. We create and manage customized investor programs on behalf of public, corporate and labor union pension plans as well as endowments, foundations, health systems and other financial institutions.

INVESTMENT PLANNING

MANAGER RESEARCH

OPERATIONAL DUE DILIGENCE

LEGAL DUE DILIGENCE AND NEGOTIATIONS

MONITORING, COMPLIANCE CHECKING AND REPORTING

OUR INVESTMENT APPROACH

Franklin Park’s investment activities are exclusively focused on the private equity and private debt markets.

Investment Philosophy

The key tenets of our investment philosophy are:

Our primary rationale for investing in the private markets is to generate high absolute returns, or to add incremental return to an overall investment portfolio.

Accompanying the potential for higher returns is higher risk. As an asset class, private markets are riskier than public equity given its heavier weighting towards high growth sectors and younger and smaller companies.

Manager selection is the primary risk in the private markets. Average returns in private markets are not compelling and do not compensate investors for risk.

Risk is managed by equally weighting time and individual commitments, while constraining exposure to strategies, regions, funds and managers.

Private markets are long term asset classes, so we take a long term approach to investing and do not seek to time the market based on changes in the short term outlook for the investment environment for any particular strategy.

Manager Selection

There are three primary challenges in building a successful private market programs today. First, manager selection is critical to achieving the desired returns given the significant performance penalty if you are not invested in top performing funds. Second, as the private markets have matured and attracted increasing amounts of institutional capital, funds are regularly oversubscribed. Third, fund manager investment performance is not repeatable – meaning, managers do not consistently beat their benchmarks from one fund to the next. We believe the following aspects of our manager selection process serve to mitigate these challenges:

Thinking outside‐the‐box: As with other asset classes, private market investors are often guilty of herd mentality and performance chasing, which may lead to mediocre results. While our client account portfolios are weighted towards proven manager funds, we also believe it is important to continually identify new and emerging manager funds. Such funds have been a significant contributor to our investment results.

Proactive manager coverage: Our investment approach is to continually conduct due diligence as part of our monitoring of existing manager relationships and build relationships with new managers well in advance of their fundraising. Vetting managers in advance of their fundraising has enabled us to successfully position our clients for allocation where we desire.

Forward‐looking analysis: Given that a historic track record is not a reliable indicator of future performance, key to our due diligence approach is to evaluate manager capabilities that have driven past returns and assess whether those capabilities are still present and relevant to continue to drive outperformance in the future.

Portfolio Construction

We advocate establishing flexible investment guidelines to allow for an opportunistic approach, rather than setting rigid targets. Setting rigid targets can result in forcing capital into sub‐asset classes, regardless of whether there are high quality managers in the market. In private markets, risk is managed by equal weighting time (vintage years) and individual commitments and constraining exposure to strategies, regions, funds and managers. We believe this approach to risk management appropriately balances an opportunistic investment approach focusing on the best possible funds with prudent portfolio diversification and risk management.