Investment Committee Qa

---
name: Investment Committee Q&A
description: Produces a ranked IC question bank with a written answer to each and a conditions slate for the objections better met with a condition than a defence, when you need the session to test the deal rather than the presenter.
---

# Investment Committee Q&A

## When to use

Use this skill in the 48-72 hours between circulating the IC memo and the committee session. The memo makes the argument; this prepares the interrogation of it. It applies to a first approval, a re-approval after a price move, and follow-on capital requests. Use it especially when the team is confident, because confidence is the condition under which answers get invented in the room.

## What it does

Produces a question bank ranked by return impact, a written answer to each, a labelled list of the questions to which there is no good answer, a pre-agreed conditions slate, and a speaking plan for who answers what.

## Method

1. **Read the memo as an adversary.** Mark every number that moves the return and every sentence that hedges. The recurring three: the QoE haircut, the credibility of the growth bridge, and the exit multiple.
2. **Rank by return impact, not by likelihood of being asked.** State how much MOIC and IRR turn on each answer. A question worth 0.4x of MOIC is prepared before one worth 0.05x, whatever this committee habitually asks.
3. **Write each answer before the room.** Three parts: the direct answer in one sentence, the evidence and the workstream it came from, and the limit -- what diligence did not establish. Anything longer than ninety seconds reads as discomfort.
4. **Isolate the questions with no good answer.** Name them. The honest form is: we cannot evidence this, here is what we did instead, and here is what it costs if we are wrong. An invented answer that unravels under the follow-up costs more than the weakness it hid.
5. **Decide the conditional slate in advance.** Some objections are not defeated by argument, only resolved by a condition -- a signed retention package, an escrow, a price adjustment, deferred consideration. Fix which objections these are and the maximum concession authorised beforehand, so the concession is a decision rather than a reflex under pressure.
6. **Rehearse the pass case.** Require one member of the team to argue for declining, using only the memo. If nobody can build it, the memo is not balanced and the committee will build it instead.
7. **Assign voices and a time budget.** One owner per topic: the diligence lead answers earnings quality, the partner answers price. Budget a third of the session to presentation and two thirds to questions, and protect the price discussion.
8. **Log the session and route what survives.** Every open question becomes a dated item with an owner; those that cannot be closed before signing become conditions in the approval minute rather than good intentions.

## Inputs

- The IC memo and its risk matrix
- The returns model with sensitivities and the bid ceiling
- Issues log, QoE report and commercial diligence conclusions
- Minutes of recent sessions of this committee -- committees have habits
- Fund return threshold, concentration limits and deployment capacity

## Output format

- Question bank ranked by return impact, each with answer, evidence and stated limit
- The no-good-answer list, labelled as such, with the agreed wording
- Conditions slate: objection, resolving condition, maximum concession authorised
- Speaking plan and session time budget
- Post-session log: open questions, owners, dates, and which become conditions
- Present the question bank and all schedules in prose, never as markdown tables

## Example

Ravensdale Compliance Software (fictional, illustrative): entry at 11.0x QoE EBITDA of 42 gives enterprise value of 462, funded with 189 of debt at 4.5x and equity of 273. The base case reaches EBITDA of 68 in year five and exits at 11.0x for 748; net debt swept to 100 leaves equity of 648, or 2.4x MOIC and 19% IRR. The hardest question is the exit multiple, and the honest answer is that it cannot be evidenced, so the prepared answer gives the sensitivity instead: each half turn below entry is 34 of enterprise value, about 0.12x of MOIC and 1.3 points of IRR, and at 9.0x the base case is 1.9x and 13%, below the fund's threshold. The committee's real objection, though, was the CFO -- which belongs on the conditions slate, approval subject to a signed retention package, not in a defence of the incumbent.