Key component of an investment decision making process
Due Diligence is a critical component of an investment decision making process. That process will vary from one firm to another based on multiple factors including investment type. In the context of fund investments for example, significant amount of time is spent doing Investment and Operational Due Diligence (but not only). In other contexts (such as direct investments in companies), other critical aspects of Due Diligence/Deal Underwriting include Tax Due Diligence, Legal Due Diligence, ESG Due Diligence etc.
What do all Due Diligence processes have in common?
Whilst these processes require different skillsets and expertise, they also all have three things in common and this is what we will be covering in this article. At the end of the article, we also tell you how technology can help you (investors and asset managers) perform these 3 steps more efficiently and take more informed decisions.
- Step 1 - Capture Data: No due diligence can start without data and/or documents. Multiple factors will impact the quantity of data and the format that a manager will provide. For example, large institutional managers will typically request managers/GPs to complete their own customized due diligence questionnaires, whilst smaller investors may not have customized questionnaires (or may not have ticket sizes that would justify the efforts for managers to complete them). Overall standard document/data requests include a general marketing presentation, a DDQ, staff organizational chart and biographies, track record/performance breakdown, policies and legal documentation.
- Step 2 - Review the data: Once received, all this information needs to be reviewed and analyzed. This process tends to be quite manual given data (especially in private markets) tend to be unstructured and not standardized. Lots of reading and lots of Control F (searching key words inside documents) to find the information that investors are looking for.
- Step 3 - Summarize and report: Any Due Diligence exercise is typically summarized in a report, whether word, excel, power point or any other format. This report is shared with relevant stakeholders to review and decide on next steps (stop, hold or progress to next stage).
Leverage technology for your Due Diligence process
Investors
- Step 1 - Data Collection: You can build your questionnaire templates, securely invite managers to respond, track responses, automatically store the documents and data in a central platform that all relevant stakeholders in your organization can access.
- Step 2 - Review: You can use flagging/auto scoring rules, you can compare responses across all your investments, and you can leverage AI enabled features to summarize and review the information that has been provided.
- Step 3 - Reporting: You can summarize your main findings and automatically generate a report (word/pdf) that follows your company style.
Managers
If you are a manager responding to DDQs from existing or potential investors, you can efficiently manage all your Due Diligence requests through a simple platform and use AI features to automatically respond to new questionnaires based on your existing DDQs or Q&A.
If you are interested in learning more about how technology can help you, please reach out to us!