Tag Archives: Deal Execution Services

Introduction to Deal Origination Services

Making a deal is imperative for a Venture Capital or a Private Equity firm. That is the business they are in. However, behind every successful deal that attracts investment, there is a pipeline of multiple other deals that are curated over time. Deal origination services deal in populating and updating that deal pipeline.

Every fund has an investment philosophy or mandate to make deals that are relevant for its purpose of delivering outsized returns. Some specialize in early-stage investments like Seed or Series A while others prime for late-stage investments like M&A or Series D and beyond. Whatever is the fund mandate, it’s imperative for every private equity or venture capital fund to populate the deal pipeline, so that the deals that fit every criterion could be fructified as and when required. For Hedge funds and Fund of Funds, deal origination concerns about stocks and funds respectively. Deal Origination for Investment Banking also works on similar lines.

Scope of Deal Origination Services

Private Equity Deal origination or Venture Capital Deal Origination services understand in detail the fund philosophy or the mandate. It is then broken down into actionable categories for the selection of targets. For a typical early-stage VC fund, for example, would be interested in SaaS product companies, where the product development has been done and the company is looking for commercialization in the space where the fund may have connections to bring in the early clients. This breaks down into requirements in terms of the industry of the target, industry where target’s clients are, revenues, geographical presence, employees, team, and their background, and suitability to deal terms like management ready to give majority stake, etc.

Once the profile of an ideal deal is finalized, the search begins for the potential targets, where the deal could be fetched.

Population and Update of Deal Pipeline

The deal pipeline is continually updated for the right deals. Every new deal that is originated finds a place in the deal pipeline. This also works for M&A deal Origination. As not all the details about the private companies are available in the public domain, primary research along with secondary research is employed. Details of the deal origination process are explained below

Deal Origination Services

How A Deal Pipeline is Populated?

Here are the most common ways of populating the deals pipeline:

 

Secondary Research

Secondary Research is the backbone of finding suitable deals. The analyst looks for the private and sometimes public companies satisfying a given set of criteria like revenue, stage, team, geographical presence, etc. Information on all relevant parameters is collected to shortlist the right target

Primary Research

Once the target is shortlisted the analyst gets in touch with the company to collect other information and understand the intent of the company to raise funds. All the information collected is duly captured in the pipeline sheet or Deal Origination platform

Accelerators

Accelerators, Incubators, and other similar Associations provide a current set of targets that are looking to raise funds and have been primed to do so. Getting in touch with such organizations provides important inputs to the deals pipeline. Sometimes these organizations distribute information through regular newsletters which need to be studied to populate the pipeline for the appropriate targets

Platforms and Events

Some multiple platforms and events help startups in raising funds. These platforms are continually looking for investors to fund their member startups. The analyst usually takes the membership of these platforms to receive periodic information

Deal Databases

There are multiple deal databases along with private company financials. Each geography has a specialized database. Sometimes databases also specialize in a given industry. Deal terms on databases help in arriving at the company valuation which is useful in the deal execution stage

Introduction to Deal Execution Services

Once the pipeline is populated and the opportunity is shortlisted for deal-making, deal execution services come into play. Deal execution services help in preparing documents that go into deal-making and negotiations involved therein.

Activities in deal execution are Financial Modeling, Valuation, Due Diligence, Strategy, Business Development Support, and Deal Documentation

Deal Execution Services

All that forms Deal Execution Services

Financial Modeling

Financial modeling serves as a host of purposes. It analyzes if the proposed acquisition, buy-out, M&A, or investments makes sense financially. It also helps in fine-tuning the financial future of the proposed asset. Revenue, profitability, and costs are forecasted to finally arrive at a proposed valuation. The financial model also takes into account the cost of capital and analyzes various exit opportunities for investors. The financial model also suggests if the investment is viable and is going to provide the expected returns to the fund. The financial model analyzes various investment scenarios too, and how key investment parameters change in all those scenarios. Financial Models have been traditionally prepared on the excel sheets but increasingly there have been multiple software products to aid the modeling and reduce the analyst errors

 

Valuation

Valuation is one of the key metrics for the investment decision. It is calculated differently for different types of companies and their maturity. For public companies, the DCF Model along with comps from similar companies gives a comprehensive view. For private companies, it’s usually based on multiples prevailing in the industry. Valuations change in various business scenarios of optimistic, pessimistic, and realistic business outcomes

 

Due Diligence

Due Diligence makes sure that investment is right and will meet its objective in terms of expected returns from the asset. Due Diligence checks thoroughly the financials of the company. All the assumptions made to forecast the financial future are double-checked. Due diligence also checks for the track record of the team as professionals. All aspects of Corporate Governance are verified in detail. Legal battles, statutory or government actions on the company are looked at. Due diligence gets into details of finances, strategy, assumptions, marketing, people, team, and everything else that is important. For smaller assets, it could be done in a few weeks, whereas for strategic investment it can go on for months. A data room is set to comb through the huge amount of data and information.

 

Strategy Formulation for Portfolio Companies

In terms of Deal Execution either the strategy is prepared or already prepared strategy document is vetted. A strategy document is put to attract co-investors and set the expectations from the management. Strategy or plan for the next 5 to 10 years is prepared. The input from the strategy document goes into financial modeling and revenue forecasts. If Strategy is already in place, assumptions are rechecked to make sure the document is robust and achievable. Annual budgets are also derived from the strategy documents.

 

Business Development Support for Portfolio Companies

Immediately after the deal goes through, major thrust from investors is towards the business development of the invested company. Almost always there is an imminent need of finding out and reaching out to the customers. It is usually achieved through lead generation and meetings’ set up in B2B set-up and effective digital marketing in B2C set up. Business Development support services ensure the revenue and growth forecasts are met

 

Deal Documentation

There are a host of documents that are prepared for fund-raising. Requirements are even more in the case of public companies. Following are the documents that are usually prepared for fund-raising

PPM/CIM: Private Placement Memorandum or Confidential Information Memorandum is a detailed document covering all aspects of the proposed investment

-1 Pager: It’s a teaser document that is sent out for information of other investors

-Financial Model: As discussed earlier in the document, it analyzes the investment in all scenarios and the respective outcomes.

-Pitch Deck: A short version of CIM which is more of a marketing document

Several other forms are filled and prepared depending on the geography of the investor and investee.

Magistral Consulting has helped multiple investors like Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Family Offices in making the right investments through all the services mentioned above. To drop an inquiry please visit www.magistralconsulting.com/contact

About Magistral

Magistral Consulting has helped multiple funds and companies in outsourcing CIO related activities. It has service offerings for Private Equity, Venture Capital, Family OfficesInvestment BanksAsset Managers, Hedge Funds, Financial Consultants, Real Estate, REITs, RE fundsCorporates and Portfolio companies. Its functional expertise is around Deal originationDeal Execution, Due Diligence, Financial ModelingPortfolio Management and Equity Research

For setting up an appointment with a Magistral representative visit www.magistralconsulting.com/contact

About the Author

The Author, Prabhash Choudhary is the CEO of Magistral Consulting and can be reached at Prabhash.choudhary@magistralconsutling.com for any queries or business inquiries.

What are Outsourced Investment Officer (OCIO) Services?

An Outsourced Investment Officer services or OCIO provide support in terms of research and analytics for investment decisions by a company, Private Equity or Venture Capital Fund, Hedge Fund, Family Office, or an Investment Bank. Simply put, An Outsourced Chief Investment Officer fills in for a regular Chief Investment Officer as and when required. Mostly it comprises activities that support a CIO in performing his services effectively.

When is OCIO needed?

Outsourced Chief Investment Officer services are designed for funds like Private Equity, Venture Capital, and Hedge Funds, and for Family Offices, Investment Banks, and M&A functions of Corporates

Need of OCIO Services

When it makes sense to outsource Chief Investment Officer?

 

It’s not possible to hire a full-time CIO in all situations. In many business scenarios, there is a requirement of a team that supports the CIO. This size of the team changes as per the deal flow. Some of these situations are:

-The fund is small and cannot afford a full-time CIO

-The fund is still raising and cannot onboard a full-time CIO unless the fund reaches its target close

-A full-time CIO is there but there are way too many investment decisions that need analysis and hence the requirement of a trained investing team

-A Corporate house is looking for a specific opportunity of M&A and does not want to hire a full-time CIO for a few deals here and there

 

What are the advantages of an Outsourced Chief Investment Officer?

Outsourced Chief Investment Officer makes an absolute sense when looked at from the cost perspective.  When outsourced to a low-cost country, OCIO could produce a benefit of a 30-70% reduction in cost by either outsourcing the CIO or the team or some of the functions and projects. A specific function where the in-house team lacks the expertise could be outsourced as well. Here are the typical advantages of outsourced CIO:

30-70% reduction in the costs depending on the location from where the outsourcing takes place

A plug and play outsourced Chief Investment Officer model where a CIO comes into play when required. If there is only one deal that has to take place in a year, it makes sense to hire a CIO for only as many days as required. Outsourced CIO fits in perfectly for this requirement

A specific Skillset requirement: With complex investing scenarios and multiple complex options in investing, there are many niche skills that are required to make an investment decision. Outsourcing could be done for these niche skills whenever required

Team Augmentation: This is the most important advantage of outsourcing the CIO. It’s not about replacing or hiring an outside CIO, it’s about augmenting the team under the current CIO. It may so happen that business requires enhanced analyst capacity due to increased deal flow or a few special one-time projects. Outsourced Chief Investment Officer Services fill in perfectly here and augment the team as required

Activities under Outsourced CIO

The activities that come under OCIO are either the overall decision analytics or a particular subset of activities that lump under the investment decision making process. Here are the activities that form the major part of Outsourced CIO services:

Outsourced Chief Investment Officer Services

Activities provided under OCIO services

Investments

Research and Analytics services for investments are performed under this service. The investment could be done in companies, stocks, funds, or real estate. Almost all the subset of activities could be outsourced. Here are the typical examples of the projects

-Finding out the right price for a company stock

-Finding out the valuation of a private or a public company

-Doing due diligence of a fund or a company before investment

-Originating deals as per the investment objectives of the fund

-Maintaining and populating the deal pipeline for future deals

-Profiling potential companies or investing

-Profiling various Hedge funds for investing in case of Fund of Funds

-Other Strategy, Research, or Marketing tasks

Portfolio Management

Research and Analytics services that are required for the smooth functioning of portfolio companies come under this. For Hedge funds, it will be continuously evaluating long-short positions. Here are the typical projects that could be outsourced:

-Valuation of portfolio companies

-Research support for portfolio companies

-Marketing and Business development support for portfolio companies

-Evaluating long term long and short positions of a long-short equity hedge fund

-List generation for a portfolio company to sell its products

-Lead generation for further acquisition or finding a buyer of the company

-Market entry strategy for a new market or a new product

-Annual business plans

-Key accounts management for major clients of the portfolio companies

-New product development and related market research for portfolio companies

Operations

Under these services are the activities that enable the smooth functioning of a fund. This comprises Middle and Back office operations outsourcing. Some of the examples of the projects undertaken are:

-Fund administration services

-Annual and quarterly audits

-Tax preparations

-Investor portfolio accounting, subscriptions, and redemptions

-Fee waterfalls

-Middle office outsourcing

-Back office outsourcing

-Trade accounting

-Exception handling

-Cash and Trade reconciliation

Under this multiple software also could be used to make sure many of these activities are automated and processes efficiently

Outsourced Chief Investment Officer Model

 

The way an outsourced CIO model works is by hiring FTEs offshore. FTE stands for Full-Time Employees/Equivalents. These are the offshore-based analysts who support multiple tasks related to investment research and decision making. Apart from hiring full-time resources, there are options for buying analyst hours or outsourcing a specific project.

 

Magistral Consulting has helped multiple funds and companies in outsourcing CIO related activities. It has service offerings for Private Equity, Venture Capital, Family Offices, Investment Banks, Asset Managers, Hedge Funds, Financial Consultants, Real Estate, REITs, RE funds, Corporates and Portfolio companies. Its functional expertise is around Deal origination, Deal Execution, Due Diligence, Financial Modeling, Portfolio Management and Equity Research

 

 

For setting up an appointment with a Magistral representative visit www.magistralconsulting.com/contact

About Magistral

Magistral is a leading research, analytics, and consulting services provider for Investment Banks, Private Equity, Venture Capital, Family Offices, and Hedge Funds. It has more than 100 clients across the globe. If you need any of Magistral’s work samples or need to talk to any of its existing clients and referenced drop a line at www.magistralconsulting.com/contact

About the Author

The Author, Prabhash Choudhary is the CEO of Magistral Consulting and can be reached at Prabhash.choudhary@magistralconsutling.com for any queries or business inquiries.