The Admiral Golden Triangle

Today I want to share with you the concept of Golden Triangle. Every investment deal boils down to three parts: execution, trust, and needs. Admiral has named this relationship the Golden Triangle. This is useful because to have a successful deal, you will need to have all three. Execution is the bedrock of all deals. And it has three parts: assets, ability and advisors. To pull off a successful deal, first we need the appropriate assets. This is especially true when the business is not traditional equities. A real estate direct investment deal, for example, crucially depends on what kind of assets you can find. Next, we have the ability to acquire and then manage the assets. Again, different asset classes require very different levels of management expertise. An investment into listed equities requires mostly efforts in finding the right price and monitoring the price movement. But a venture capital deal will require serious effort in targeting the companies and their day-to-day management. The last element includes appropriate advisors and their partners. A private equity deal, for example, will require legal partners, accounting partners, compliance partners and others. Trust is about the 4Ps - Philosophy, Process, People, and Performance. Whether or not client and prospects trust us makes a huge difference in how they invest with us. Our senior team has extensive experience in the industry, but Admiral itself is a new platform. Admiral is conscious that clients will need to trust not only the team, but the entire platform for them to invest with us. As such, our various partners, from fund administration to accounting, are all the [most dominant] players in their respective fields. We know that very well that we could go with less dominant players and the cost will probably be lower, but we made the decision that the [most dominant] players will help build the trust in our process and our performance. The third step of a successful deal is create client needs. Admiral engages in some niche products, which means that the market may not yet be completely familiar with the product. We experience is that prospects do not always want to ask the questions. "Why bother with a new investment when they can stick with the old ones?" This is why we need to provide information to clients. Often, multiple formats are needed. To help with our REIT fund business, we have created longer FAQs, for more detailed information; and we have created short flyers to carry the shorter version of the story, often called the 30-second story. Only after clients have established that they understand an investment and to see it as desirable, then we can discuss how much and in what ways the clients can invest their capital. And these are the capital and channel aspects of creating needs. So here we have it. The three corners of the Golden Triangle: execution, trust and needs. I don't think any of the three are more important than the other two. In fact, every time when we have a successful deal, we will need to perform on all three levels. This is why we call this framework the Golden Triangle.