What due diligence is meant to do is to protect you before you buy. Caveat emptor! Unfortunately, the banks and funds have concentrated on white-collar executives cramming themselves into a large boardroom for a long discussion, possibly punctuated by lunch and drinks. Bankers, financiers, accountants, lawyers, technical specialists and backup staff all enter into the [...]
Direct investments are largely restricted to private family-owned companies and star t-up companies that have attracted specialist venture capital or private equity interest. Many small companies have to rely on direct investments for the bulk of their financing. In general, however, direct investments present a number of specific problems to both the providers and users [...]
Individuals, cor porations and even governments and state institutions may have savings or money that is sur plus to their current requirements. For convenience sake we will refer to them all as investors. Investors seek the following: Risks and returns. To get the highest level of return available for a given level of risk taken, [...]
The range of retail financing requirements is much narrower than for cor porations: Homes. Many people, for a number of reasons, aspire to own their own home whether it be a castle in the English countr yside, a condo in New York or a semi-detached house in suburbia. Financing for such purchases is long term [...]
