David Callahan argues that misconduct spreads where rewards are steep and detection is weak - a structural reading of cheating far more useful to risk teams than character screening.
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- Archives: Background Checks
July 25, 2023
Counterparty risk is the exposure you take on from the people you transact with — their solvency, their conduct, and their own counterparties. It rarely announces itself, and it is usually priced at zero until it is not. This guide sets out what counterparty risk actually covers, where it hides in ordinary commercial relationships, and how to assess it without stalling the deal.
June 29, 2023
In “Beware of deal-killers: Six common due-diligence pitfalls”, published on Canadian Family Offices, Tobias Jaeger of Falcone International names the six places family offices most often lose money: the management team, co-investors, regulatory change, third-party vendors, the deal structure itself, and cultural and language gaps. Each one is straightforward to check and routinely skipped, usually because the deal is already moving.
May 23, 2023
Pre-investment due diligence is the cheapest part of any deal and the first thing compressed when a timeline tightens. As structures grow more complex, experienced investors still miss the detail that undoes the transaction — usually because nobody was given the time to look. This piece covers what proper pre-investment diligence includes, and what it costs to find out afterward instead.
March 9, 2023
An investment firm had capital on the table and a concern about where it had come from. Declining is expensive and visible; accepting the wrong money is expensive, invisible, and permanent. How three independent lines of inquiry converged on the same answer while the firm still had the choice.
March 1, 2023
The candidate for a top-level appointment came recommended by the company’s own senior executives, and there were five business days before the decision had to be made. Five days is short enough that it does not compress the method, it replaces it. How we re-planned around the deadline, and what surfaced in regional press that no screening database indexes.
February 27, 2023
Background checks protect against legal and financial liability, confirm that qualifications are real, and keep the workplace safe — but only if they are run before the offer rather than after it. Criminal and employment history checks establish whether the record matches the résumé, and whether the person you are about to give access to has a history that would change your mind. Most of the cost of skipping one arrives months later.
February 10, 2023
In this white paper, we share practical strategies for private equity firms to mitigate deal execution risk, enhance governance, and protect funds and managers against internal and external threats. A high concentration of capital in the hands of a small number of people puts private equity firms under the same pressure as larger investment organizations with a higher headcount.