New York, NY September 25, 2014 – The Silverfern Group, a leader in non-traditional global direct investment, today announced that Founder and Co-Managing Partner Clive Holmes spoke at the Citi Private Bank Investing in Private Companies Conference in London, delivering a presentation titled “The World of Club Deals”.
The Citi Private Bank Investing in Private Companies Conference forms the basis of an ongoing forum that brings together a cross-section of participants focused on the subject of finding the next potential direct investment opportunity in operating companies.
During his presentation, Silverfern Co-Managing Partner Clive Holmes discussed why individual investors find club deals attractive, focusing on critical considerations such as the fact that size does matter, having access to far greater deal resources, risk management and investment discipline.
Discussing why size does matter, Clive Holmes said: “Getting access to better, non-syndicated, deals is critical for generating superior returns and investment portfolio alpha. Staying relevant therefore matters – the unspoken fact of direct deals is that nobody cares about a co-investment of less than $25 million per deal – you get treated like you are a retail mutual fund investor. With increased size comes improved deal governance and information flow – the ability to improve your returns on the upside, protect your investment on the downside, and the transparency of deal-by-deal information to know exactly when action may be required. As an institutional active direct investor we are always represented on the Board of our investments”.
Turning to deal resources, Clive added: “Remembering that direct deal diligence is very different from manager diligence, investing in operating companies requires focus from a dedicated, experienced, team of investment professionals. Access to a deep pool of experienced operating executives is also critical – both to avoid “financial investor” pitfalls an industry veteran would have clearly seen, as well as to fully understand the industry cycle you are investing into. With a network of over 50 operating executives to draw from, we look to deeply understand the industries we are investing into”.
On risk management and investment discipline, Clive concluded: “To invest globally, you need to always be local. If you don’t have investment professionals on the ground in the geography where your investment is based, you need to partner to adequately manage risk. Even a well-run company can founder in the face of unquantified geo-political or regulatory risk. Investment discipline is key – always have at least one independent member on your investment committee to avoid the deal team’s “love of the deal”. And never relax your investment criteria just to get a deal done. Remember that for capital to be grown, it must first be preserved”.
Media Contacts:
Todd Fogarty or Aduke Thelwell
KEKST
todd.fogarty@kekst.com or aduke.thelwell@kekst.com
+ 1 212 521 4800
About Silverfern
Founded in 2001, Silverfern is one of the largest and most successful family office investment clubs in the world. Silverfern invests on behalf of more than 65 of the world’s largest and most sophisticated multi-billion-dollar single family offices, and has a global exclusive partnership with the Citibank Private Bank. Through its offices in New York, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Sydney, Silverfern makes non-traditional, direct, co-control and minority investments in middle market private equity and real estate investment opportunities globally. Silverfern’s investment strategy seeks to mitigate systemic risk in its portfolio by pursuing attractive risk-adjusted returns on a global basis, while at the same time seeking to manage local/market risk through its strategy to partner with non-traditional, local, investment partners on each of its investments. Silverfern is amongst the few truly global middle-market, multi-asset-class, investment management firms in the world today, with resources akin to those of a strategic, local investor.
Additional information is available at www.silfern.com