Fraud rises when budgets tighten. Pressure goes up, headcount comes down, and controls that quietly depended on someone having spare time stop working. This weekend read sets out where exposure concentrates during a downturn and which defenses actually hold: strong internal controls, systems that flag the patterns people miss, a crisis plan written before it is needed, and a culture in which raising an anomaly is not a career risk.
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.
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.
Falcone International has launched FIRA v2, a free online risk assessment for leaders who want a structured read on their own exposure. Twenty-five questions produce a scored report that names and ranks the weak points rather than describing them in general terms, so the result is something you can act on rather than file.