Investment Memos?
Do people at the MFs actually have to write detailed investment memos, with real analysis, growth and continuous improvement strategies, proprietary industry research, etc. of the companies they are acquiring…
or do the partners just want you to scrap a few pages together just to say you did and YOLO it?
Edit: Not trying to be an ass, but feel my firm is behind and am trying to gauge how far behind we are.
dm'd
Bump
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Not at a mf, but last memo we did was ~40 pages and yeah filled with tons of market research, analyses, risk factors/mitigations etc., key DD workstreams, operational improvement ideas, and model outputs. Basically have to address any and everything the committee could possibly try to grill us on.
how long does this take to do, how many ppl working on it?
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MF PE. The “executive summary” from my last IC memo was 25 pages. I actually like our decks a lot, quite comprehensive.
Is there a rationale behind that 25 page executive summary? Beause that feels neither executive nor like a summary
Agree with this comment on overkill. A Partner at my MF said that if you can't explain what the investment is and why we should do it in one page, you don't know the investment enough. I very much agree.
Having had a mid-level person have me work on a 80 page deck just to have it killed very quickly was demonstrative of that.
At LMM, but my last IC memo was 75 pages, pre-appendix. Really comprehensive deck with everything you mentioned included.
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Not at a MF but we have around $40bn AUM. Our IC memos are typically PowerPoint, 20 pages or less (including appendix) at all deal stages. It can be frustrating sometimes because we try to make them fairly visual and it is actually extremely difficult to pare down the information to the most important points within that page limit. I'd also argue that the PPT structure is less effective at allowing you to convey nuance, and allows you to gloss over important considerations. Luckily our teams don't try to abuse it and "sneak one by" our committee, but in a more toxic environment I could certainly imagine it happening.
MM PE London - ours are about 50-60 pages
MF PE. Final IC Memos are typically ~2-4 pages of Word write-up summarizing the situation, key investment highlights, risks and mitigants, and valuation; ~20-25 .ppt slides, and ~3-5 pages of model outputs. All in pack is typically ~30-35 pages, excluding appendix / back-pocket materials / Q&A responses.
Our IC is incredibly quantitative / data-driven and only one hour long, so there is really no space at all for fluff or long summaries of DD reports nobody reads. It's 100% analysis and outputs.
Intermediate IC briefings (e.g. before putting in a non-binding offer to a Board) are ~20-25 pages.
Intro packs for select IC members (e.g. ahead of submitting Round I bids) have a hard cap at 15 pages (incl. word, slides, model).
How long in total including appendices?
Mostly depends on intensity of Q&A and supporting documentation. Appendices and back-pocket themselves are rarely over 10-15 pages long, but if you get intense Q&A questions from multiple committee members the weekend before IC, you can end up with 20-30 pages in Q&A response alone.
Very interesting to hear coming from a MF. In growth rn and our ICs are basically the same as you laid out at each stage.
Great post and outline. Why do you think some funds end up creating 100+ IC decks?
If I had to guess it'd be either due to (a) nobody actually reading the memos or (b) a CYA mindset vs. let-me-convince-the-billionaire-founder-to-deploy-$1Bn-in-60-minutes mindset
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yes. happens alot in SWF / Pension Fund types too. How much of that is needed is... debatable.
Some of it is good (and good practice for you as an assoc anyway, to shape your thinking), but quite a fair bit is for the senior people on the investment team to cover their ass and achieve consensus (further ass covering)
Typically ~50 slides, exec summary, thesis, business overview, market, business and financial plan, projected returns, appendices
How's it like at your firm?
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UMM Infra PE. IC's formally split up into three stages (initial screening, NBO stage and final binding offer stage), with interim briefings in between.
All done in ppt, slides capped at 7 for screening and 25 for each other stage excluding appendices - but Partners/IC are instructed to stop reading after slide 25. At our shop we are heavy on having sidebars with partners/IC during the DD process so absolutely nothing is new to them at final IC, and it's just a procedural meeting almost and to formally minute.
I fully agree that if you are churning out huge decks, you either don't understand the business or are a very poor communicator. Was at a shop like this before and very much prefer our style of doing things.
I think we may be at the same firm lol
Y’all hiring - current at infra fund and looking to make a switch
MF PE. Word write up up front followed by a handful of slides and model outputs
We usually prepare some backpacks and other supporting materials for our deal team ahead of the conversation
MM PE with memos that are at most 20 slides or so. Not a lot of fluff and it is largely used to update the team on the transaction, key analysis, and our investment thesis. At a larger firm, it’s just accepted that most people likely aren’t going to read some 50 page detailed memo in its entirety before IC. We do extensive analysis but it doesn’t necessarily all get squeezed into a memo. I prefer this method because it forces me to know the deal that much better when getting asked questions instead of handing people a book with the answers they won’t look at and ask the same questions anyway.
helpful, thanks
Deal team developed 40-50 page IC memos with a due diligence deck on the drive with ~150+ slides summarizing our diligence.
Definitely feels like a more “boil the ocean” / CYA method relative to other firms. Senior investment team members have a hard time boiling down the thesis to its critical points.
We actually had an initiative to use less words in our memos to get to the point. Slides still had 100’s of words each.
>$1B latest fund
*Fewer words*. Watch your grammar
bump
MM PD fund; 2 stage IC, 1st stage 2-pager, or 15 page memo. Final is 30 pages. Word format.
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MM PE
1st stage 4 pages (cap)
2nd stage 15-25 pages
3rd stage 80-110 pages
All excluding appendix which are typically larger than the memo itself.
MF PE Secondaries
IC memos typically ~25-30 slides + ~5 pages of sensitivities and model outputs
Three stage process - preliminary, final group IC, final firm IC
Efficient
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Previously at MF PE where our structure was:
Format would be to have a partners meeting with everyone and then when you got the thumbs up you’d have the IC with founders / senior partners. Decent amount of one-off discussions so usually wouldn’t have lots of surprises by the actual meetings
this seems efficient/ideal
How would the budget request process work if you only meet twice?
LMM PE where our memos are typically 80-110 pages. Extreme overkill and highly inefficient. Leeds to some very late nights especially when you already know whether or not IC likes the deal at that point. And god forbid there is co-invest involved where you will have to turn those materials into basically a CIM for marketing
Feel you. In MM and its around ~40 pages on average in PPT (2 Stage IC)
Y'all are doing slide decks like in banking? We are still using word docs for IC memos 😭. Limits questions because we can literally write paragraphs explaining everything but no way anyone reads all that because half of the questions could be answered by reading it.
Not sure what is better - slide decks or word memos? Beauty of word docs is that you do not need to worry about design I guess
My fund uses word doc, which I feel optimizes conveyance of the deal with better precision. It also forces you to prepare complete sentences and use proper grammar whereas PPT allows you to gloss over information with BS bullet points to “fill the page”.
I know one particular fund where they like to have IC memos to be as long as possible (with a “table of contents” for each sub-section of the memo) because the managing partner is a complete dumbass and wants to look “detail oriented” in front of his LPs who don’t yet know he’s retarded.
I don’t want to give out names but said managing partner was also on a reality tv show and it’s laughable how he carries himself on the show.
MF. Multi-stage IC would say final memos are 100 pages
Platinum Equity - 50-100 pages, detailed slides
How detailed were the United Site Services slides? Imagine that could get rather shitty.
UMM 50-100 slides, 2-3 stage IC
Bump
Anyone have any sample IC memos they could share? Thank you
Yep, pm have a few
interested
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MF PE. Our IC memos are very comprehensive and need to cover every possible question the IC might ask.
Initial Screening: 5 pages in Word
NBO/BO stage: no limit, but typically ~70-75 pages in PPT for main deck, and 100-150 pages for appendix (incl model outputs)
interim check ups are also pretty detailed and around 20-40 PPT pages
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