Through your connections at the Columbia University Enterprise Risk Management program, you recently started a new assignment as a senior risk analyst at The Surrey Group, one of New York Citys most prestigious private equity funds, named after the famous hotel where the founders of the firm met to start the firm. This private equity fund has a strong focus on (1) proactively managing the strategic risk associated with companies in its portfolio and (2) understanding the strategic risk posture of any potential acquisition. You report to the Director of Portfolio Risk Management (PRM), who has a team of 23 risk analysts who are constantly evaluate companies. The Director of PRM is very busy as she is constantly evaluating the strategic risk posture of companies in the portfolio and assessing potential acquisition in order to advise the firms managers.
Your first assignment for the Director was to assess the company that
you selected in Assignment 1, (the project is code named Buffalo). Based upon the information that you provided in Assignment 1, the Surrey Group has taken a 5% pre-emptive stake in the firm you evaluated in Assignment 1. The Surry Groups executives are poised to complete the acquisition of that firm, but before they do, they want to make sure they are selecting the best firm in the industry. Since you did such a good job on the first assignment, the Director has selected you to be part of the due diligence team for project Buffalo. There are members from legal, finance, operations, human resources, and others on the due diligence team, as well, performing analyses in their disciplines. Your task is to identify a close competitor of the firm you evaluated in Assignment 1 and do a thorough comparative analysis of the firms from a strategic risk management perspective. You must address all elements listed in the memo below.