Why use an adviser?
Management teams of fund management groups and high growth, privately held companies are increasingly hiring specialist outside advisers to help them in a fund raising or exit realisation process. As the fund raising and M&A environments continue to become progressively more challenging, with competitive differentiation, due diligence requirements and timing issues ever more critical, so it is important to have access to independent support and expertise.  Without the benefit of well informed market expertise a significant erosion of value and opportunity cost may result. Benefits can be categorised as follows:

Efficient Use of Resources
An adviser enables management teams to spend less time on fund raising and more time on investing, supporting portfolio companies and managing their business. While managers still need to commit time in meeting investors, the organisation and implementation of the marketing process and the burden of follow-up work can be done - to a significant extent - by the adviser thus permitting an efficient and effective use of resources. It is our experience that younger funds and companies tend to underestimate the drain on their managerial capacity from an unassisted fundraising exercise.

Advice on Structure and Market Positioning
Advisers can add significant value in structuring a fund or devising a corporate capital structure and planning marketing strategies.  They can advise management teams how best to position their investment proposition in the market place, identify the information and key issues that must be addressed and provide guidance on the prevailing terms and conditions that are considered acceptable by investors.

Access to Investors and Up-to-Date Market Knowledge
An experienced adviser will have established access to, and good working relationships with, investors not known to or identified by the fund manager.  Support from a recognised intermediary also helps establish credibility in the marketplace.  As markets are dynamic, it is important to be constantly building new relationships in order to cover the market thoroughly and to be aware of changing interests and appetites amongst investors.

Process and Closing Support
An adviser will, in an organised and structured fashion, undertake much of the time consuming responsibilities in following up with investors, identifying and resolving any issues, keeping the client profile on track with the investor and facilitating a successful closing.  Assistance with the negotiations on pricing and/or terms of investment can be critical to a successful fund raising.

Investor Awareness
Fund raising requires a long term strategy. It is critically important for management teams to maintain high visibility in the marketplace well before a fund raising is launched.  A qualified adviser will raise targeted investor awareness and keep management teams regularly updated on investor trends.