By Cassidy Cavanagh, The Middle Market
Avisa Partners, a global risk and reputation management firm, has acquired Forward Risk and Intelligence LLC, a firm that offers investigative due diligence, business intelligence research and international risk assessments for investors, corporations and law firms.
Forward Risk, based in Washington, D.C., works to complement Avisa’s existing advisory offerings. Going forward, Forward Risk will now be known as “Forward Risk (An Avisa Partners Company)” and retain its existing independent website, branding, leadership team and client roster. The firm’s 30 employees will integrate into Avisa’s U.S. headquarters in Washington and its co-founders, Luke DiMaggio, Andrew Wooster, and Brendan Foo, will become partners of Avisa.
“Avisa Partners delivers elite advisory services to global clients working to solve complex and challenging matters,” says Eric Bovim, CEO of Avisa U.S. “With Forward Risk on board, Avisa can now expand its data-driven solutions to include investigative due diligence, strategic intelligence, and compliance.”
Ce 16 novembre 2022, Avisa Partners a annoncé l’acquisition de la société américaine Forward Risk and Intelligence LLC. Le cabinet parisien spécialiste de l’intelligence économique se renforce ainsi aux États-Unis.
Fondée en 2016, Forward Risk est basée à Washington D.C et opère dans 75 pays. Son cœur de métier est la gestion des risques financiers, l’identification et la récupération d’actifs, ainsi que dans les investigations pré-contentieuses au service des actionnaires et des grandes entreprises. Ses équipes mènent investigations, recherches économiques et financières, et procédures d’évaluation des risques pour les gestionnaires d’actifs, les fonds de capital-investissement, les cabinets d’avocats, les multinationales ou les organisations internationales. L’entreprise met l’accent sur les résultats axés sur la valeur ajoutée obtenue par une stratégie de personnalisation des modes d’actions.
Après l’ouverture d’une filiale basée à Washington en octobre 2019 pour lancer son activité outre-Atlantique, cet achat permet à Avisa Parnets d’augmenter considérablement ses équipes sur place, en outre la trentaine de salariés de Forward Risk arrivent en renfort de la vingtaine d’experts déjà présents dans la filiale américaine d’Avisa. Cette augmentation du personnel vient certainement accroître le chiffre d’affaires d’Avisa Partners aux États-Unis pourtant déjà conséquents de plus de 10 millions de dollars en trois ans d’existence soit 20 à 25% du chiffre d’affaires mondial. De plus, les activités de Forward Risk étant aussi spécialisée en intelligence économique, cette acquisition permet de renforcer les activités de la filiale américaine d’Avisa Partners surtout présente sur le domaine de l’influence.
Avec ce rachat Avisa Partners souhaite s’imposer comme un acteur de référence de l’intelligence économique aux États-Unis et en Europe et à terme comme un leader international de l’intelligence économique.
Avisa Partners is acquiring and integrating Forward Risk and Intelligence, which will now be known as Forward Risk (An Avisa Partners Company). Forward Risk will retain its existing and independent website, branding, leadership team and client roster, and its co-founders Luke DiMaggio, Andrew Wooster and Brendan Foo will become partners at Avisa.
By Alison Knezevich, Law360
A Washington, D.C.-based corporate investigations and risk advisory firm will be part of Avisa Partners, a public affairs, risk- and reputation-management company based in Paris, Avisa announced Wednesday.
Forward Risk and Intelligence LLC will be known as Forward Risk (An Avisa Partners Company). Its 30 employees will integrate into Avisa’s U.S. headquarters in Georgetown, said John Procter, an Avisa partner in D.C.
“Forward Risk’s capabilities, its track record and its physical presence here in Washington made it a natural fit not only for our firm, but for our clients,” Procter said in an interview with Law360 Pulse.
Investigations and research “was increasingly critical to the advisory role and the strategies that we’re developing for our clients,” he said.
Forward Risk co-founders Luke DiMaggio, Andrew Wooster and Brendan Foo will become partners at Avisa, whose clients include corporations, private equity and hedge fund investors, and law firms. Forward Risk will retain its website, branding, leadership team and client roster, Avisa said in the announcement. Forward Risk’s services include investigative due diligence, business intelligence research and international risk assessments
for financial institutions, corporations and law firms. Foo said the deal offers growth, stability and a global presence for Forward Risk, which was founded in 2016.
“All of that comes together to help us better serve our clients,” Foo told Law360 Pulse.
The companies declined to disclose the financial terms of the acquisition.
Foo said Forward Risk has worked extensively with law firms on shareholder activism matters. It also conducts investigative research for parties in complex litigation. Avisa opened its Washington location in 2019. More than 300 people work for the company, which also has offices in Brussels, London, Miami and Geneva.
Last year, Avisa acquired 35°Nord, a strategic communications and influence agency focused on Africa.
–Editing by Orlando Lorenzo.
Acquisition of Forward Risk latest example of Avisa Partners’ High-Growth Expansion Strategy
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Avisa Partners today announced the acquisition and integration of Forward Risk and Intelligence LLC, a firm that conducts investigative due diligence, business intelligence research, and international risk assessments for investors, corporations, and law firms.
The announcement follows Avisa’s recent rapid expansion within the U.S. market, and the December 2021 acquisition of 35°Nord, an agency specializing in communications and influence strategies on the African continent.
The unique services provided by Forward Risk, based in Washington, D.C., complement and integrate seamlessly with Avisa’s existing advisory offerings, delivering a competitive edge for global corporations, private equity and hedge fund investors, law firms, international institutions, and high-net-worth individuals.
“Avisa Partners delivers elite advisory services to global clients working to solve complex and challenging matters,” said Eric Bovim, CEO of Avisa U.S. “With Forward Risk on board, Avisa can now expand its data-driven solutions to include investigative due diligence, strategic intelligence, and compliance.”
Forward Risk and Intelligence LLC will now be known as Forward Risk (An Avisa Partners Company) and retain its existing and independent website, branding, leadership team, and client roster. The firm’s 30 employees will integrate into Avisa’s U.S. headquarters in Washington, and its co-founders – Luke DiMaggio, Andrew Wooster, and Brendan Foo – will become partners of Avisa, with the ability to provide value-added services to all of Avisa Partners’ global clients.
“Joining Avisa Partners is a perfect fit given their scale and diverse advisory solutions that will yield immediate value for our clients,” said Forward Risk co-founder Brendan Foo. “Our best-in-class offering combined with Avisa’s global reach make this a win for all involved.”
About Forward Risk and Intelligence
Forward Risk (An Avisa Partners Company) is a corporate investigations, intelligence, and risk advisory firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. The firm’s experienced and resourceful team conducts investigative due diligence, business intelligence research, risk assessments, candidate vetting, and other bespoke intelligence services for asset managers, private equity, law firms, multinational corporations, and political campaigns. The firm emphasizes value-oriented results through thorough research, sophisticated analysis, clear writing, and thoughtful presentation.
About Avisa Partners
Avisa Partners is a global risk and reputation management firm that provides a comprehensive suite of advisory services to clients worldwide. Avisa’s 300 professionals, working in six cities across the globe, offer an established track-record of success working with blue-chip clients across industries, sectors, and geographies. The firm develops custom solutions to multi-stakeholder commercial, reputational, legal, regulatory, and public-perception challenges.
Media Contact: John Procter
John.Procter@avisa-partners.com
In this OODAcast we interview one of our close friends and OODA network members, Jen Hoar.
Jen is a former journalist-turned-corporate investigator who has leveraged the potent act of asking, and listening, to turn strangers into sources and contacts into clients. Her expertise, which is clearly also her passion, is identifying and interviewing smart people about any given topic, to learn as much as possible to inform clients’ executive decision-making.
Harnessing her experience as a journalist and business intelligence practitioner, she has developed and delivered Human Intelligence for Business training for entrepreneurs, sales, private equity, business development and legal professionals. This training refines how to identify and contact knowledgeable people – prospective clients, partners, investors and subject matter experts – to harness unique insight from purposeful dialogue.
Official Bio:
Jen Hoar leads human source intelligence work at Forward Risk.
She specializes in — and loves — finding and interviewing smart people about any subject. A former journalist, Jen first honed investigative prowess at ABC News, National Journal, and CBS News, and later by working with former CIA operations officials and prosecutors, among others, in boutique corporate intelligence firms in the Washington, DC, area.
Jen was also a founding member of a Facebook investigative team, where she worked on election integrity and information warfare issues. A proud double Hoya, Jen is nonetheless endeared to Fordham, where her parents were longtime professors.
Podcast Version
Additional Information
OODA Network Interview with Jen
Book Recommendation: Black Edge: Inside Information, Dirty Money, and the Quest to Bring Down the Most Wanted Man on Wall Street
Forward Risk managing director Jen Hoar was a featured guest on the September 27, 2022 episode of NPR’s The Indicator from Planet Money podcast. Jen discussed the corporate intelligence industry, demystifying and illuminating how we harmonize open source research and human source intelligence.
With the recent spate of CEO controversies, Jen highlights the importance of pre-investment due diligence on top executives to detect issues before they become reputational and financial hazards to investors working with them.
Forward Risk is pleased to have had the opportunity to discuss the nature and impact of our firm’s work on this national media platform.
We invite you to listen to this episode at the link below and welcome your questions and feedback.
April 30, 2020–Corporate investigations and advisory firm Forward Risk and Intelligence this month announced the opening of its New York City office, expanding beyond its headquarters in Washington, DC. Forward Risk’s New York office places the firm in closer proximity to several of its core clients, and is co-headed by Mike Aber and Mike Seyer. Recently I caught up with the both of them to discuss the growth of the firm and gather some insight into their work with private equity firms.–Publisher David M. Toll
Tell me what brought the two of you to Forward Risk.
We have been working with each other for several years now, most recently leading the investigative intelligence team at a boutique diligence firm. Most of our work there was transactional diligence and pre-M&A work for private equity firms in the middle market.
Forward Risk already had a great team doing deep dives for corporate contests, and we thought that those two practice areas – proxy fights and M&A – fit naturally together. Both require a nuanced, analytical approach, grounded in an economic thesis, and a hunger on the part of the analyst to dig strategically and think creatively. We saw those qualities in our colleagues here at Forward Risk.
You specialize in investigative due diligence. What does this research consist of and how is it used by private equity firms?
To give the short version, investigative due diligence is how we help our private equity clients kick the tires on their investments. Private equity is first institutional money, or buying from one another. There’s no Wall Street coverage or investor calls for the ophthalmology practice down the road. Our clients are the ones that value having as much information at their disposal as possible. That’s where we come in, doing the background research on management’s record, on the company’s operations and human capital. We can provide a good look under the hood by examining the public record, and making independent reference calls to former employees, business partners, and customers. Whatever insight our clients need.
What is the most common mistake you see private equity firms make when evaluating target companies?
It’s actually a mistake in process. Making a bid for a company based only on a PowerPoint deck and notes from management meetings isn’t enough. It isn’t good enough to have the five-year financials and a strong handshake.
This isn’t so much a mistake as a growing pain. You see some of the more experienced private equity firms committing significant resources to their due diligence process. They institutionalize their review of every opportunity they look at, and they engage specialists for every step of the process. And there is a good reason for this. Mistakes are expensive. Mistakes are discrediting, and make it harder to fundraise and to present oneself as an attractive partner to management teams. In the beginning, everyone is confident making deals based on their own research and their gut feeling. And then they get burnt.
How would you describe the frequency with which you find something so serious it kills the deal or, at a minimum, leads to a renegotiation?
It depends on our clients’ individual risk appetites, but it does happen. We have uncovered outright fraud, and there have been reputational risks that have risen to the level of deal killers. But we don’t measure our success by the number of deals our research has killed, or take any pride in needing to tell the client that this one is pencils down. Protecting our clients is our minimum expectation of ourselves.
But our goal isn’t to flush two months of our client’s work down the drain. We’re trying to improve the terms of the deal, to make the partnerships between our client and management teams more constructive. We want to see our research having a positive impact on our client’s ability to execute a successful growth strategy for the company as soon as the purchase agreement is signed.
And how do you accomplish this?
Focused research in the public record, and independent reference calls. Without one or the other, you’re closing your eyes to the whole picture of what kind of company you’re buying. From our perspective, if we are buying a company, we want to know what management brings to the table, their personalities, where they are at in their personal and professional lives, what makes them tick.
But we also want to know as much as possible about everyone on the org chart. Who can be placed in a role of more responsibility? Whose potential can be unlocked if we move them from product to marketing? What’s the company culture? How do we leverage the working relationships that already exist, or create more collaboration among different parts of the company?
More macro, where can the company mature as an organization? How can it capture its next opportunity within the market? A robust diligence process can help answer these questions. This is a value-seeking process, not just a compliance exercise.
What’s next for you and Forward Risk?
Very simply, keep a disciplined focus on our core competencies. We work mostly with hedge funds, law firms, and private equity. These are sophisticated actors who require work that is concise, clearly articulated, and actionable. So the plan is to grow maturely, and continue to hire analysts who are, first and foremost, intellectually curious and who refuse to just check the box. As a firm, we want to be able to look through the eyes of our investor clients, or law partner clients, when breaking down a situation and problem solving. We’re going to stay focused on becoming the best at what we do.
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Forward Risk and Intelligence Inc. (www.forwardrisk.com), an investigations and risk advisory firm based in Washington, DC, has opened an office in New York City, which will house the core team of the firm’s newly-established private equity practice.
Co-heading the office are Mike Aber and Mike Seyer, who joined Forward Risk in October after building and leading a similar practice at their previous firm. Aber and Seyer specialize in pre-investment diligence and vetting executive hires for lower- and middle-market private equity firms, providing both deep dive reports and discreet source inquiry work.
“We have built our private equity practice to provide a more sophisticated diligence option than what is offered in the market right now,” said Mike Aber. “No one on our team believes in simply checking the box.” Added Mike Seyer, “Our source inquiry work, combined with our experience digging strategically in the public record, make Forward Risk an ideal diligence partner to the private equity community. We are looking for more than red flags. We are looking for levers of opportunity and growth, aligning our work with our client’s primary objective – unlocking the value of their portfolio.”
Forward Risk’s private equity practice builds upon the firm’s history as a specialist in providing intelligence for corporate contests, working with shareholders and corporations to advance governance best practices at the management and board level. Forward Risk believes that these two practice areas are mutually reinforcing, both requiring a nuanced, analytical approach, with each engagement guided by the unique investment context and thesis.
Brendan Foo, a Co-Founder and Partner, commented, “We are excited to open the New York office and to continue to build upon our past growth with the launch of our private equity practice. At its core, our mission is simple – ensure that our clients are always equipped with an information advantage.”
About Forward Risk and Intelligence
Forward Risk is a corporate investigations, intelligence, and risk advisory firm based in Washington, DC. Our service areas include: Corporate Contests; Private Equity Due Diligence; Litigation Support; Political Vetting and Opposition Research; and Risk Advisory. Forward Risk offers cutting-edge research and analysis and bespoke services to fit our clients’ specific investment needs, providing them with actionable intelligence with which to make crucial decisions.
Contacts
Michael G. Seyer, Forward Risk
mseyer@forwardrisk.com