Fund Manager Due Diligence Products for Investment Advisors & Professional Firms
Specialized AIAS and IAV diligence for professionals who need evidence about the capital formation capability behind a fund manager.
Investment diligence establishes what a fund intends to do. It rarely establishes whether the manager has the operating capability to develop the investor relationships the fund depends on.
These products examine that capability directly and classify what was found by the evidence available on the audit date.
Does the manager have a structured, measurable, and governed operating capability capable of supporting the capital formation strategy the fund depends on?
Well constructed funds can still depend on an unexamined capital formation capability.
Professional diligence tends to concentrate on strategy, terms, track record, controls, and service providers. Those areas are well covered by existing process. The capability the manager uses to develop investor relationships and form capital usually is not.
That capability determines whether a fund can be capitalized on the timeline it was designed around. When it is weak, the consequences appear as delayed closes, extended timelines, and revised expectations, long after the diligence file was closed.
CSP examines that capability as a defined object, the Investor Acquisition Vehicle, and reports what the evidence supports.
The question is not whether the investment is attractive. The question is what evidence exists that the manager can actually form the capital the strategy assumes.
The examination is additive. It is designed to sit alongside the work your firm already performs, not to substitute for any part of it.
Built for professionals evaluating managers, without replacing the work you already perform.
- RIAs
- Wealth managers and financial advisers
- Family offices and multi family offices
- OCIOs and investment consultants
- Investment analysts and diligence firms
- Attorneys, CPAs, and professional firms
- Fund administrators, placement professionals, and investment platforms
CSP's role is additive and narrow. It supplies documented evidence about one component of a manager's operating capability so that your own analysis, judgment, and professional responsibility can be exercised with better information.
Examination, re-examination, and authorized visibility.
Audit
AIAS IAV Due-Diligence Audit
Examine the vehicle as it stands on one audit date.
A structured examination of the manager's Investor Acquisition Vehicle, including how investor relationships are developed and owned, how acquisition capital is deployed, what evidence and records exist, how the work is measured, and how it is governed.
What evidence exists, as of this date, that this manager can form the capital the fund requires?
Scope of examination
- Relationship development and ownership
- Acquisition capital deployment
- Records and evidence
- Measurement practice
- Process and workflow
- Governance and accountability
Evidence classification
- Documented
- Supported by records CSP was able to review directly.
- Manager-Represented
- Stated by the manager and not independently verified.
- Observed
- Seen in operation during the examination period.
- Unavailable
- Requested and not provided within the audit window.
- Unverified
- Present in some form, but not able to be confirmed.
- Follow-Up Required
- Incomplete at the audit date and requiring further inquiry.
- Deliverable
- A written examination report presenting findings classified by the evidence available on the audit date.
- Note
- The audit is point in time. It makes no claim of continuous visibility into the manager after the audit date.
Re-Audit
AIAS IAV Re-Audit
A new, complete examination at a later date.
A re-audit repeats the full examination as of a new date. Findings are established again from current evidence, and prior findings are not carried forward or assumed to remain accurate.
Is what we established previously still true today?
Common triggers
- A new fund or vehicle
- A further allocation under review
- Material change at the manager
- Significant time since the last audit
- Findings previously marked Follow-Up Required
A re-audit is not
- Passive monitoring
- A surveillance memo
- A simple update
- A score refresh
- An assumption that prior findings remain current
- Deliverable
- A new examination report as of the re-audit date, with findings classified on the same evidence basis.
- Note
- Comparison against a prior audit is presented as a change in evidence, not as a trend, trajectory, or rating.
Monitor
AIAS IAV Monitoring Access
Authorized visibility, only where the conditions are met.
Monitoring Access provides continuing visibility into authorized evidence from a manager's governed IAV. It is available only where all four mandatory conditions are in place, and it is manager controlled throughout.
Is the capability we examined being maintained and governed over time?
Four mandatory conditions
- 01The manager operates a governed AIAS Investor Acquisition Vehicle.
- 02The manager expressly authorizes the professional's access.
- 03The evidence made visible is defined and limited in advance.
- 04The access is governed by a written agreement covering scope and duration.
Monitoring Access does not provide
- Unrestricted investor data
- Access to the manager's systems
- Real time surveillance of the manager
- Any rating, score, or approval
- A substitute for a new examination
- Deliverable
- Continuing visibility into the specific authorized evidence defined in the access agreement.
- Note
- Where all four conditions are not in place, the engagement is not Monitoring Access and is not described as such.
Start from the situation in front of the file.
Situation
You are evaluating a fund manager for the first time.
Product
AIAS IAV Due-Diligence Audit
Situation
You previously audited the manager and need current evidence.
Product
AIAS IAV Re-Audit
Situation
You require authorized visibility on an ongoing basis.
Product
AIAS IAV Monitoring Access
CSP supplies evidence. Your professional responsibility remains yours.
These products document what was examined and what the evidence supports as of a stated date. They do not transfer, share, reduce, or discharge any duty your firm owes to its clients, and they do not constitute a recommendation to invest or to decline.
Any decision made after reviewing a CSP examination remains the decision of the professional or firm making it, exercised under its own standards, policies, and regulatory obligations.
An IAV audit is not a fund approval.
CSP examines operating capability. It does not evaluate the merits, risk, pricing, or suitability of any fund, security, or investment opportunity, and it issues no opinion that could reasonably be read as one.
To be explicit about the limits of the work, CSP does not provide the following.
- Investment advice
- Legal advice
- Tax advice
- Accounting advice
- Fiduciary judgment
- Suitability determinations
- Fund approval or endorsement
- Fund ratings or scores
- Performance forecasts
- Valuation opinions
- Audit of financial statements
- Verification of investment returns
- Ongoing surveillance unless separately authorized
Nothing in a CSP examination should be represented to clients, investors, or regulators as an approval, certification, rating, or endorsement of a fund or a manager.
Whether a fund is attractive and whether it can be capitalized are different questions.
AIAS is the governing methodology for capital formation capability. The Investor Acquisition Vehicle is the operating expression of that methodology inside a single manager's organization.
When professionals examine the vehicle, they are examining the mechanism the fund depends on to reach its capital objective.
A strategy can be sound and still be unfunded, if the capability behind the raise was never built.
That is the gap these products are designed to make visible, in documented form, as of a stated date.
What professionals ask before engaging.
- What is an IAV due diligence audit?
- It is a point in time examination of the operating capability a fund manager uses to develop investor relationships and form capital, classified by the evidence available on the audit date.
- Does this replace our own diligence?
- No. It examines one component of a manager's operating capability and is additive to the investment, operational, legal, and fiduciary work your firm already performs.
- Is this a rating of the fund?
- No. CSP does not rate, score, approve, endorse, or recommend funds or managers, and no finding should be read as an assessment of investment merit.
- Why is a re-audit a full examination rather than an update?
- Because conditions change. A re-audit is a new, complete, point in time examination. It is not passive monitoring, a surveillance memo, a simple update, or a score refresh, and it does not assume prior findings remain current.
- What does Monitoring Access require?
- All four mandatory conditions must be in place. Without all four, the engagement is not Monitoring Access and should not be described as such.
- Does Monitoring Access give access to investor data?
- No. Visibility is manager controlled and limited to authorized evidence. It does not imply unrestricted access to investor data or to the manager's systems.