Solutions / Due Diligence & Research / Investment Research
Recherche en investissement
Confirmation is easy to find for any thesis. The useful question is what evidence would falsify it, and whether that evidence exists.
Tested against itselfThe case is broken into its load-bearing assumptions and each is tested separately.
Falsification, not confirmationWe look for the evidence that would break the thesis, because that is the part nobody else does.
Watched after the decisionContinuous market and competitive monitoring across holdings, with alerts on material change.
In simple terms
You tell us the thesis. We test it against independent evidence, including looking hard for what would make it wrong, and tell you what we find either way.
What Investment Research is. Investment research supports thesis development and testing, market and sector analysis, portfolio company monitoring and exit preparation, structured to work against the thesis as rigorously as for it.
What makes this different. A review that always supports the transaction is comfort, not diligence. Ours reports what it finds, including the findings that change the price or stop the deal.
What the service covers
These are the areas we work across, such as the ones below. We combine them in the proportion your question needs, and we tell you which ones your question does not need.
Thesis testing
The investment case broken into its load-bearing assumptions, each tested against independent evidence.
Sector analysis
Structure, growth drivers, competitive dynamics and regulatory exposure across the sector and its adjacent chains.
Portfolio monitoring
Continuous market and competitive watch across holdings, with alerts when something material changes.
Exit preparation
Buyer universe, comparable transactions and the market narrative an exit process would need to stand up.
Questions this answers
If something like this is on your agenda, the engagement is already half scoped.
- Does the market evidence support this thesis, or merely permit it?
- What would have to be true for this to be a bad investment?
- How durable is this company's position over our hold period?
- What is the realistic exit universe in five years?
- Which portfolio company is facing a market shift we have not priced?
How you can use this
A few of the situations where this service does real work.
Validating a thesis
The case is compelling and has not been independently tested.
Assessing an unfamiliar sector
The opportunity sits outside your team's coverage.
Monitoring a portfolio
A market shift could affect a holding before you see it.
Preparing for exit
You need a credible buyer universe and market narrative.
What changes for your business
The practical difference between running on this and running on what you have now, such as the following.
You price the risk instead of discovering it
Issues found in your own diligence are negotiable. Issues found in the other side's are deductions.
You spend diligence budget in the right order
A fast screen surfaces deal-stoppers before you commit to full scope on an asset that will not clear.
Committee papers stand up
Findings are evidenced, severity-rated and structured the way an investment committee expects to receive them.
You get the uncomfortable findings too
A review that only supports the deal is comfort, not diligence. Ours reports what it finds.
Valuation rests on tested assumptions
The parts of the model carrying the valuation are identified and tested separately, rather than accepted as a set.
You can act on it after close
Findings come with commercial consequence and owner, so the first hundred days start from something concrete.
Who this is for
Roles that commission this work most often include those below. Each asks a different question and gets a different cut of the same evidence.
Investors and deal teams
Does the investment case hold under independent testing?
Findings with severity, evidence and commercial consequence, in a format an investment committee accepts.
Corporate development
Are we buying what we think we are buying?
Independent assessment of market position, customers and growth assumptions, including the uncomfortable parts.
Finance and CFO teams
Are these numbers defensible?
Reconstructed and normalised financials with the estimation method stated wherever disclosure runs out.
Risk and compliance leadership
What are we inheriting that we have not priced?
Regulatory, environmental and governance exposure with cost and timing attached.
Founders and vendors preparing to sell
What will a buyer find that we have not addressed?
The issues a buyer's adviser will raise, ranked by likely price impact and whether they can still be fixed.
Typical clients
How we work
The third step is the one that makes the output usable, and it is the one most work of this kind skips.
Understand the decision
We start from the decision the work supports: proceed, reprice, or walk. That decides what has to be proven and to what standard.
Gather and test independently
Market, customer and financial evidence gathered directly, then tested against what management has represented.
Read it for your position
What matters depends on your hold period, your thesis and your risk appetite. The same finding is fatal for one buyer and immaterial to another.
Report to committee standard
Findings with severity, evidence and commercial consequence, structured the way an investment committee expects to receive them.
What you receive
Diligence report structured to investment committee standard
Findings register with severityevidence and commercial consequence
Financial or commercial model with scenarios
Management presentation and a live question session
Access to Phi, our AI research platformincluded
Every engagement comes with access to Phi. Ask questions of your own findings in plain language, pull the evidence behind any number, and keep querying long after the work is delivered. Your team gets the working intelligence, not just the document.
Open PhiWays to start
Tell us the decision and the date it has to be made by. We will recommend the smallest engagement that gets you there.
Red-flag review
A fast screen surfacing the issues that would stop a deal, before you spend more.
Full diligence
Complete commercial, financial or operational review to committee standard.
Portfolio monitoring
Continuous watch on holdings, with alerts on material change.
Common questions
Will you argue against our thesis?
Deliberately. An engagement that only gathers supporting evidence is not research, and it is the expensive kind of comfortable.
Do you provide investment advice?
No. We provide research and analysis. Investment decisions and any regulated advice remain with you.
Who owns the work?
You do. It is exclusive to you, it is not resold, and working files are handed over unlocked.
Will you sign an NDA?
Yes, before the first conversation if you prefer.
Tell us the decision you are facing
Send us the question, the context and your timeline. You get back a recommended first step, what evidence it needs, and what it costs. Not a capability deck.