The asset with a great story and no title
The pitchA large parcel of land at a fraction of comparable prices, with a compelling narrative about what it would one day become.
Why we passedThe story was excellent. The chain of custody was not. Title was contested, the paperwork did not reconcile, and no amount of upside makes an unenforceable claim worth owning. We buy title, not narrative — if we cannot hold it in escrow, we cannot hold it at all.
The IRR that only worked if the cycle cooperated
The pitchA mining opportunity with a headline return well into the thirties, modelled out in a clean, confident spreadsheet.
Why we passedThe return only cleared its hurdle at a commodity price meaningfully above trend. Strip out the price bet and what remained was ordinary. We underwrite deliverable tonnes against title, grade and offtake — not a forecast. A return that depends on the cycle being kind is not a return. It is a wager wearing a suit.
The operator we could not diligence
The pitchA charismatic founder, a deal closing this week, generous terms for anyone who could move fast, and the reassurance that everyone was already in.
Why we passedThe references did not reconcile, and the operator treated independent verification as an insult rather than a courtesy. Urgency is a sales tactic, not a virtue. The deal you are not allowed to slow down is precisely the deal you are not allowed to check — and we do not write cheques we cannot check.
The solar plant with a permit but no connection
The pitchGigawatts of permitted, shovel-ready capacity in a region with world-class sun, offered at a price that screened as cheap per megawatt.
Why we passedThere was no firm interconnection at a node that could actually evacuate the power. A permit is not a connection, and megawatts the grid cannot accept are not an asset — they are a hope with an engineering report attached. We priced the injection point first. It was not there.
The fund-of-funds in a real-asset costume
The pitchDiversified real-asset exposure across dozens of underlying holdings, wrapped in a single tidy vehicle with a familiar brand.
Why we passedLayered fees, a blind pool, and not one clean line of sight to a single physical thing. Diversified fog is not safety — it is ignorance with a nicer brochure. If we cannot point at the asset and name it, neither can you, and that is the whole thing we exist to avoid.
The carbon credit that priced integrity at zero
The pitchAvoidance credits at scale, cheap by the tonne, with the promise of an easy, marketable climate story.
Why we passedThe abatement rested on an unobservable counterfactual — a claim about emissions that supposedly did not happen. We buy removal, not the absence of a story. A tonne you cannot measure is a tonne we will not underwrite, however good it looks on a slide.
The deal that needed us to be the last money in
The pitchA raise almost complete, a short bridge to the close, attractive terms for whoever could fill the final gap quickly and quietly.
Why we passedBeing the marginal, hurried cheque at the end of someone else's process is not underwriting. It is hoping, at speed, with your capital. We would rather originate than rescue — we want to be the reason a deal exists, not the reason it barely closed.
Details are illustrative and altered. These are categories of opportunity we decline — not disclosures about any specific counterparty, deal or person.