There’s a lot of steps. We’ll evaluate from 10 to 100+ sponsors to find one we like. A few of the steps include:
- First, does the product the sponsor is developing have a clear market need?
- Is the location have high population growth and a good tax advantages? If not, can we generate enough extra return to offset these disadvantages?
- Next, do we believe the assumptions in their economic model match our assessment of the economy?
- What if we have a big recession and a slow recovery? Will we have acceptable results?
- What would have to go wrong for our investors to not get their initial investment back?
- How many times has the Sponsor done a project like this? Have they done these projects in different phases of the economy?
- Does the Sponsor have strong bank relationships? Lending is a particular challenge at the moment.
There’s more on the checklist, but that illustrates the point.