Due Diligence: Waiting One Week Could Save You Millions
Sometimes in business, there is a tendency to act now before an opportunity passes you by. Hire the candidate before they get away; commit $2 million to the syndicate by Friday or lose the deal.
What sometimes gets lost in the desperation…
What You Won’t Read in Our Reports: “He Has No Criminal Record”
Clients who have seen the online “Nationwide criminal background check, $69” come-ons sometimes ask why we won’t ever say that someone has no criminal record.
They also wonder why doing a proper criminal check in even a single state…
Saving Money on Due Diligence: Look at the People First, Not Last
You are the Chief Investment Officer screening possible targets for a $5 million investment in a non-public asset. Whether you work at a family office, a private equity fund or somewhere else, the prospective deal flow should be coming at you…
The Epstein Appointment Book Story: This is What Due Diligence Looks Like
For those of us who thought Jeffrey Epstein probably had a larger group of rich and powerful acquaintances than we had known about, the Wall Street Journal appears to have proven us right.
A story over the weekend says the following…
Cheating, Grade Inflation, AI – What Smart Job Screeners Need to Do Next
Hiring good people is getting a lot harder, and not just because there are fewer candidates in a lot of industries. With AI-enabled cheating, grade inflation, and the shunning of standardized tests by colleges and graduate schools, how is a…
FTX Warnings vs Madoff Warnings: What was the Difference?
Investors in Madoff Securities and FTX were both warned, but by different sets of people.
If it turns out to be true that without customer knowledge FTX took billions of dollars of customer account money to invest in a risky company owned…
Good Due Diligence: Buy Back Your Future Mistake for 0.28 Percent
You want to invest $3 million into a real estate project. Time is tight because it’s closing in 12 days. The developer (51 years old) seems to have a decent track record and takes credit for billions of dollars of projects, but this project…
When Too Few Regulatory Problems Add to Risk
One indispensable part of due diligence is to check for regulatory sanctions. Was a company found by the SEC or FINRA to have misappropriated investor money? Put them in unsuitable investments? Lied on a filing to induce people to invest money…
Angel Investor Due Diligence: The Key Trait You Want
I’ve done a lot of interviews about people over the years, but you can always get better.
A fascinating conversation last week with an angel investor about what he looks for in a candidate to run a new company gave me a question I will always…
Public Record Sources for Free – What Any Investigator Can (but May Not) Tell You
Investigators get information in exchange for money, so why in the world would an investigator want to tell people how to get that information for free?
As I wrote last week on our companion blog, The Divorce Asset Hunter in an article called…
