In episode one of this five-part special, Tom Fox discusses risk intelligence from a geopolitical perspective. Guest Chris Mason explains the importance of risk assessment and analysis that companies must undertake when engaging in international business and the need for conducting due diligence based on open-source intelligence to uncover and mitigate hidden risks.
Chris Mason is with Infortal Worldwide, a global risk firm that provides due diligence services to support various risk types. Infortal Worldwide supports a lot of private equity investment, mergers and acquisitions, and any type of risk scenario a business may face.
- It’s important to know who you’re doing business with at the executive level, especially in today’s market.
- When entering into a new deal or merger with an individual or company, you need to take a holistic view of the track record of that company or individual. You have to do your due diligence to ensure that you’re not partnering with people engaged in unethical or illegal activity.
- By conducting business due diligence, you learn who’s behind the companies you want to engage with and what their ideals and values are.
- Most of the information Infortal gathers for its due diligence processes is available via the deep web. Chris emphasizes that to be able to obtain information for your research, you must have access to various digital tools and be able to use them effectively.
- If a company gets its due diligence wrong, it can cost them exponentially. Chris uses the example of JP Morgan and the recent multi-million-dollar loss it suffered due to false information. Key investment decision-making should include open-source, intelligence-based due diligence to uncover and mitigate hidden risks.
KEY QUOTE
“When considering a new investment, you need to gain a deep understanding of who you’re doing business with.” – Chris Mason
Resources
Infortal Worldwide | Email | Tel: 1.800.736.4999
