Insights

Before discussing the economics, I thought a definition of a fundless sponsor would be helpful. An article in The Economist provided an excellent example: “The typical search-fund principals are MBA graduates from an elite American university, who raise $400,000 or so of “walking around money” from investors, who purchase a stake in the fund for about $40,000 a share. The fund searches for a high-growth, high-margin target, valued at $5m-20m. The fledgling businessmen then hold a second round of acquisition financing, as well as raising debt. Their tenure as bosses lasts until they sell out.” [1]

I recently received an email asking if I was aware of a formula that could validate the information in two columns, and return the summed value for all matches. This is easier to grasp in context, which makes the video helpful. I was, admittedly, slightly long-winded in explaining the purpose of the formula. To avoid this lengthy explanation, skip to the two-minute mark once you understand the objective.

The IRR formula made (very) simple. This post will show you the math behind an IRR calculation to make the concept easy to grasp.

This three-statement model for Amazon.com, Inc. will be used in the next installment of the Integrating Financial Statements series. While I have not typically posted a work in progress, I believe this will be helpful to ASM visitors in the interim.

I work as an investment professional at a private equity firm in Dallas, TX, and since 2013 I have also been building a financial modeling and private equity training resource with the intention of making instruction simple and content accessible. I wrote about the experience of maintaining both in an article that was later picked up by Forbes (link), which sheds some light on my experience maintaining a “side hustle.”