Category Archives: Financial

What’s it like to be a Billionaire?

Given the nature of my business, I am often asked by friends how does it feel like to deal with billionaires on a daily basis and what really makes them tick. Understanding after all the billionaire’s psyche is key to unlocking potential not seen anywhere else.

Well for a start…let me tell you that the main thing I realized after starting dealing with billionaires a decade ago is that billionaires tend to be really good at understanding systems of value creation and placing themselves into those systems more effectively than anyone out there.

Billionaires tend in fact to view the world as a tangibly fungible place. They see the world and want to move the puzzle pieces entirely around. They look for the faults in the ecosystem and identify massive holes and what could be added to fully capture that value. Then they spend about 10 years maniacally attacking the gap, organizing people, recruiting and generally creating a “cult”. They create a bible so to speak of values and ideas that bundle together in such an appealing way to attract the smartest people around (aka the future millionaires).

 

For More: http://ziadabdelnourblackhawk.com/whats-it-like-to-be-a-billionaire/

Smart v/s Wealthy

While you may think that being smart, motivated, and talented would logically make you wealthy, unfortunately, this is often not the case.

Smart and talented people often have a flair for the unusual, complicated, or different. They don’t like to follow the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid), which is required to make money.

So, being smart or talented isn’t going to help you unless you can use those smarts to figure out a way to simplify those tasks that will make you money. This isn’t easy, because it goes against everything that you have ever done and is counter to how you were taught to think. However, it is necessary for a business to succeed and why smarts and talent alone don’t predict entrepreneurial success and hence wealth creation.

Too much to lose… and, with the most to lose, a wide range of other options available, and the penchant for more intricate, complex endeavors, don’t be surprised when the person “Most Likely to Succeed” from high school ends up in corporate America and one of the more average students finds success in his or her own business

 

For More: http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/blog/smart-vs-wealthy/

Navigating the Emerging Markets Of Today

As we at Blackhawk Partners see it today, one of the biggest advantages emerging markets have offered investors is a strong growth story

Over the past decade, growth in emerging markets has, in fact, outpaced growth in developed markets by more than double. Growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) looks like it will continue to outperform that of developed markets for at least the next five years, according to estimates by the International Monetary Fund.

We are often asked why economic growth and stock market performance don’t always directly correlate in a given year, and if that’s the case, does a nation’s GDP growth matter at all when it comes to investing in companies? While it’s true that growth and stock market performance can be divergent at times, there is no question that growth matters since company earnings depend on general economic growth.

 

For More: https://www.blackhawkpartners.com/blog/navigating-emerging-markets-today/

Want to crush ISIS?

I personally believe ISIS will never become a serious and credible state in the world.

They have made it clear that they don’t care much for international diplomacy or law and that only Sharia can be used to govern their new state.

A fanatical force like this does well at first; they carry out brutal acts, capture swathes of land, steal, murder, rape, perform forced conversions to Islam and run a well oiled recruiting machine but this can only last for a while because sooner or later their resources are depleted and the circus over.

So you wanna crush ISIS? Better act fast and swift… Here’s a short list of their Achilles’ heal.

1. ISIS is militarily overextended and hopelessly ineffective against a trained and well-equipped army. Although they’re led by a few savage Chechen’s and some Arab militants who answer to a mysterious bearded man who calls himself “Abu Bakr Al-Bagdadi”, it will take only one crushing defeat to completely demoralize their forces, who so far have only shown their prowess in gunning down heretics (Shia, Ezidi, Christians and some ethnic Turkmen), beheading children and foreigners and stealing some old military equipment left behind by the US and Russia.

 

For More: Want to crush ISIS?

 

Thank You,

Assessing The Trump Candidacy

So Donald Trump is serious about running for President.

 

There are some implications for the financial and investing communities.

 

But first, to address the well-founded skepticism after previous teases at runs each election cycle since 2000: Trump is running in the Republican primary and has just filed the requisite documents with the Federal Election Commission. He has the funds to tackle the ballot access requirements in each state, and to hire the brains to strategize a successful run.

In those respects, Trump evokes a comparison to an equally iconoclastic predecessor who ran twice for President in 1992 and 1996: H. Ross Perot. Now, Trump has a big advantage over Perot in that while it is far easier to get to the general election as a self-financing independent, it is far easier to actually win if you are the nominee of one of the two major parties.

(Full disclosure): Perot’s campaign committee was my first legal client ever, and I was just one year into law school. I was one of his election law and petition advisers and press people in New York in 1992. I was there. I know.)

Can He Win?

Financial Policy Council Hosts Leading Crowdfunding Experts

On September 14th, the Financial Policy Council will host a private briefing with a panel of four crowdfunding experts who will discuss how Wall Street investment firms can strengthen market share and viability through crowdfunding. The speakers Georgia P. Quinn, D.J. Paul, Chris Tyrell, and Joy Schoffler each have unique backgrounds in various industries, but share a common, extensive understanding of the financial technology sector and the effect that crowdfunding will bring to the investment world. Ziad Abelnour, the founder and chairman of Financial Policy Council Inc., will moderate the panel.

Once overlooked entirely by institutional investors, crowdfunding has now become a solid contender in the financial world, eclipsing angel investments and eventually overtaking venture capital as the primary method for funding new businesses.

“Crowdfunding is revolutionizing the type of investors that participate and the way they access deals, as well as the companies raising capital,” said speaker Georgia P. Quinn, a securities attorney specializing in crowdfunding, and CEO of disclose, a web-based legal disclosure platform to help companies raise capital. “It is reducing costs of capital and increasing access to investments, which has major implications for both Wall Street and Main Street.”

 

For More: http://www.financialpolicycouncil.org/about-us/

 

Thank You,

What Venture Capitalists will not tell you

To hear them tell it, venture capitalists aren’t too different from entrepreneurs. They build great companies. They create jobs. In short, they feel the entrepreneur’s pain.

But one of the first steps to a decent relationship with a VC is accepting just how different the two of them really are. It is a fact that compared to entrepreneurs, VCs have different loyalties, sometimes diametrically opposed interests, and a lot less at stake.

Having been interacting with VCs for around three decades now, I thought of sharing with you what a VC will not tell you.

So here we go…

1. Savvy VCs understand that less than 1% of venture-backed technology startups will ever achieve a $1B+ mark cap. As a result, they seek category potential, not current company performance. They look to identify companies leveraging technology to build and dominate new market categories. If the category is big enough and the category king is dominant enough, current valuation is almost irrelevant. The key to making their investment decisions is understanding category potential and the ability of the category king to define, develop and dominate the space over time. As a result legendary VCs study category potential.

 

For More: http://ziadabdelnourblackhawk.com/what-venture-capitalists-will-not-tell-you/

Blackhawk approaches Business and Investments as Industrialists

The underlying philosophy of Blackhawk Partners’ investment approach consists of funding its private equity sponsored transactions with a combination of equity and debt.

Unlike most private family offices:

1. Blackhawk does not place money with other funds or investment managers;
2. Blackhawk is not in the money management, brokerage or securities business;
3. Blackhawk is a “strategic advisor” and “investor” in private equity transactions with a focus on the energy, industrial, technology and security sectors.

Strategy

Blackhawk underwrites the equity portion of a transaction, both directly and through a core group of associated family offices, on a deal-by-deal and no-fee basis, allowing its partner clients the opportunity to co-invest in its equity transactions. This model reflects our preference for investment discretion, with many high-net-worth investors themselves being hands-on business owners.

 

For More: http://www.blackhawkpartners.com/services/investing/

Due Diligence Is No Mystery

If you ask ten funded entrepreneurs what happened during the VC/private equity due diligence process, you will get ten different answers. Some will say they lost valuable months answering endless questions for groups that never produced a term sheet. Others may admit they gained valuable insights into their business.

I am uncertain when the due diligence process gathered so much mystique, but among entrepreneurs, there is still an urban “myth status” about what happens behind closed doors.

We believe it shouldn’t be a mystery. Understanding due diligence improves the information flow between private equity groups and potential entrepreneurs. Better information leads to better investment decisions and better long-term partnerships.

 

For More: Due Diligence Is No Mystery

Toward an Equitable Tax System

To most American citizens that the U.S. Tax Code has become a truncheon used to beat the American people into lockstep by an increasingly truculent political class. The actual legislative code is more than four times the length of the Christian Bible and is full of incomprehensible and contradictory exceptions and exemptions.

It is an unjust piece of legislation that hinders and manipulates economic activity.

It is enforced by an agency that is far too often the antithesis of the basic American principles of due process and equitable justice.

The time has come to replace this punitive tax system, which seeks to appropriate a portion of our income with a tax system that collects revenue on positive economic activity only. In that way, legislators would be less inclined to pass laws that inhibit economic growth or penalize success. Their actions would have a direct impact on the amount of revenues generated.

 

For More: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/04/17/toward-equitable-tax-system.html