Research and commentary for private capital.
Briefs and working notes from live engagements — published where the underlying thinking generalizes. The full archive is below; client-specific work is never published.
The emerging manager compliance calendar: 2026 edition
The 2026 fund compliance calendar for emerging managers — SEC, IRS, NFA, Delaware, Cayman — mapped in order, with the documented cost of missing each date.
Read the brief →The institutional digital-asset checklist, 2026 edition
What institutional allocators now require before approving a digital-asset strategy — custody, counterparty terms, tax reporting, and what is still pending.
Read the brief →Private credit at the late-cycle turn
Where underwriting discipline diverges from market pricing — and what that gap implies for allocators.
Read the brief →GP-led secondaries and continuation vehicles — where the diligence gaps hide
A $115B GP-led market now runs without a fairness-opinion mandate. Where continuation vehicle diligence has to look — conflicts, valuation, LP optionality.
Read the brief →Quantitative strategies and the capacity question
Separating honest quant fund capacity from marketed capacity — price impact, signal decay, crowding, and the regulatory hooks behind the number.
Read the brief →The emerging-manager fundraising market, mid-2026
Q1 2026 data on first-fund and Fund II raising — record concentration, the real emerging-manager timeline, and the anchor dynamics closing funds.
Read the brief →Treasury and banking architecture for funds — redundancy as policy
After the 2023 bank failures, fund treasury design rests on multi-bank redundancy, non-deposit cash, and segregation written into policy.
Read the brief →Reading a data room for what is missing
The absence patterns that precede write-downs, and how to surface them before the LOI.
Read the brief →Private credit's diligence problem
Volume pressure is eroding private credit underwriting. What allocators should pressure-test after Tricolor, First Brands, and a vacated SEC rulebook.
Read the brief →Background checks on fund managers — beyond the search engine
Why a clean search result is not a clean record — the free registries, court indexes, and off-list references that surface what managers bury.
Read the brief →Why operational due diligence now decides allocations
How a vacated SEC rulebook, new exam priorities, and frauds that beat the checklist shifted allocator selection from performance-led to operations-led.
Read the brief →Valuation diligence on illiquid and level-3 positions
How allocators test level 3 asset valuation — policy versus practice, real independence of marks, and the questions that expose a weak process.
Read the brief →Waterfall mechanics under stress scenarios
How GP/LP distribution mechanics behave when the base case breaks — modeled, not assumed.
Read the brief →Hedge fund fee structures beyond two-and-twenty
Where hedge fund fees have actually moved — hurdles, crystallization mechanics, founders classes, and the fee paths built to align rather than extract.
Read the brief →Key-person risk — the question most DDQs answer badly
Why fund DDQs answer key-person risk badly — decision rights, continuity provisions, and what a credible answer looks like at different AUM.
Read the brief →Side letters — what allocators ask for and what managers should concede
MFN elections, fee concessions, transparency, and liquidity carve-outs — how fund side letter terms compound, and where managers should hold the line.
Read the brief →Counterparty and custody risk in digital-asset strategies
A post-2022 checklist for crypto fund custody risk — exchange exposure, commingling, qualified custody status, and the limits of proof-of-reserves.
Read the brief →ERA or RIA: registration paths for emerging managers
Exempt reporting adviser or full registration — the thresholds, the filings ERA status still requires, and the traps at the $150 million line.
Read the brief →Verifying a track record — portability, standards, and inflation tactics
What makes a track record portable, how records get inflated — cherry-picking, sub-line IRR, backtests — and what verification actually requires.
Read the brief →What it actually costs to launch a sub-$50M hedge fund
Line-item hedge fund launch costs — formation, regulatory, audit, insurance, technology — and where sub-$50M managers under- and over-spend.
Read the brief →Technology and security due diligence: what to verify before wiring capital
Wire controls, key management, vendor exposure, incident history — the security review most ODD processes skip, and the artifact that proves each answer.
Read the brief →Selecting a fund administrator: criteria, cost, and red flags
Independence requirements, NAV process verification, servicing capability, and pricing models — and what an administrator mismatch signals to allocators.
Read the brief →Data rooms that close
What belongs in a fund data room, what regulators flag when it is wrong, and why the room's organization is the first thing an allocator grades.
Read the brief →Check-the-box: what Form 8832 means for offshore fund structures
What the Form 8832 check-the-box election does, why offshore masters must file it, and the sequencing mistakes that turn a routine form into a tax event.
Read the brief →Building a fund due diligence questionnaire that survives scrutiny
How to structure a fund DDQ, the evidence standard every answer must meet, the questions managers answer badly, and how to pre-empt the second round.
Read the brief →Operational due diligence red flags allocators catch in five minutes
Five fast-fail checks — providers, cash controls, document consistency, key-person depth, custody — that end allocations before performance is discussed.
Read the brief →The master-feeder structure, explained
What the master-feeder structure is, the tax logic behind it, what it costs to run, and when a first fund actually needs one.
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