Write the investment-committee memo

1 · Learn the move · Multi-persona

The investment-committee memo is where a development deal gets approved or dies, and it dies most often on a question nobody wrote down. At this rung the memo has a problem generic templates do not: the site is not entitled yet, the utilities are letters with conditions, and the returns are outputs of a model that rests on those two facts. A memo that says 'site is zoned for industrial' when the minutes say 'rezoning approved, site plan not filed' has told the committee something false in one clause. So the memo is written in two passes. First the model drafts it from your pasted analysis in a fixed structure, carrying entitlement and service status only in the record's own words. Then it reads its own draft as the people at headquarters who will read it, for a market they have never built in: the partner who funds the project's equity, the head of the firm's construction group whose budget the returns rest on, the asset manager who will run the buildings for decades, and land-use counsel. Each raises objections grounded in the documents, never invented concerns. The objections become the memo's open items. The model never recommends for or against the deal, never predicts a remaining approval, and never adds a number your analysis did not contain.

Draft an IC memo from my analysis: the ask, the site, entitlement and utility status quoted from the record, returns from my model, top risks, open items. Then review the draft as four readers at headquarters: the capital partner, the head of our construction group, the asset manager who will hold it, and land-use counsel. Each lists objections grounded only in my documents. Fold the objections into OPEN ITEMS. No recommendation, no invented number, no prediction of any approval. [my analysis] [entitlement record] [utility letters]