Month: March 2015

Investment Due Diligence

The importance of sources and research process

Mark Malik was arrested earlier this week for scamming investors into believing he has a top performing hedge fund with assets over $100m.  You can read the WSJ article here.

The interesting thing in this case was the reliance on sources that are known to be unreliable.  Twitter, google, LinkedIn, business directories, ranking lists, and databases are often not reliable because they may derive some information from the subject’s own claims. The best way to verify anything is by checking with the most original source possible.

Peter Barakett, President

DDC – Due Diligence Consulting LLC

DDC Investigations LLC

Investment Due Diligence, Private Companies, Private Equity

A bio of errors

DDC recently conducted a thorough background check of a private company executive as part of our client’s pre-investment due diligence.  DDC found that every line of the executives bio had an issue.  He listed some employers, with incorrect dates, or incorrect titles, or both.  He misrepresented his titles, and/or his duties and responsibilities.  He claimed to have a degree that he did not have, from a school that he did not attend.  He omitted some employment from his work history. Each one of his credentials, licenses, and affiliations was incorrect. The only thing that was right was the spelling of his name.

Peter Barakett, President

DDC – Due Diligence Consulting LLC

DDC Investigations LLC