Private Equity
Safeguard your value.
Forward Risk’s value-driven approach to supporting private equity investors prioritizes providing meaningful insight into both risk and opportunity in equal measure.
Private equity investors need more than just surface-level information. They need to know the real story before they decide to invest or make a key executive hire.
We understand that private equity investors have different concerns regarding target companies, including whether the management team has the proper experience, track record, personality, and adaptability to take a company into its next phase of growth.
Forward Risk’s human intelligence gathering capabilities have proven to be a crucial value-add for many private equity investors, especially when researching a management team with a limited public profile. Our approach, blending open-source research with human intelligence, has paid dividends in the form of actionable findings that would have been otherwise impossible to uncover.
How We Help
Investigative due diligence into target companies and leadership.
Forward Risk provides research that leverages our extensive, in-house open source, public record, and human intelligence capabilities.
Our creative and rigorous approach to investigations provides private equity firms with the intelligence they need to make informed decisions regarding investment opportunities and key personnel.
Unlocking value and mitigating risk.
We conduct an examination of a prospective investment’s human capital, operations, internal controls, culture, and overarching business strategy. Through meticulous research and interviews with former employees and other relevant individuals, we obtain valuable insight into the target company, helping private equity investors maximize reward while minimizing risk.
We also provide regulatory intelligence and industry analysis to better inform investment decisions.
Vetting executive hires.
We build a nuanced portrait of the prospective hires of a portfolio company or target company, assessing the individuals’ character, performance record, and management style. We scrutinize the individual’s suitability for all aspects of the position, including their readiness to accept investor guidance and partnership.
Improving deal terms.
Our research uncovers potential conflicts of interest, undisclosed relationships, and other potential red flags or adverse matters.
Forward Risk goes beyond the typical “checklist” approach of other investigative firms, leveraging our extensive experience with private equity clients to analyze findings from their perspective, and highlight data points relevant to their transactions. With advance knowledge of such issues, our clients can act strategically in structuring deals.
Our Experience
Investigation Reveals Company’s Mishandling of Harassment Claims
A private equity investor engaged Forward Risk to examine how a company’s leadership team had responded to a media report about harassment by a former manager.
Contrary to the firm’s claims, the company’s leadership was credibly accused of enabling the manager’s harassment and handling the aftermath poorly. The PE firm decided to stop moving forward with a potential investment.