PPM Writing Workshop

September 17, 2024

by a searcher from Harvard University - Harvard Business School in Greenwich, CT, USA

Would this be helpful for current/prospective Searchers to have 30-45min workshops regularly to help in building compelling Private Placement Memos?

Kingsway is aiming to recruit Operator-in-Residence roles within our Search accelerator and probably receive PPM on 5% of Applications - which are typically the strongest candidates to hire as they have a clear perspective on how they intend to approach search. I think there is plenty of content available on how to put this together - yet I see a paradox that it is so seldom embraced.

How can we make it easier for the best operators to stand out in the process and share their vision with investors?

Reply by a searcher
from Ivey Business School at Western University in London, ON, Canada

Excellent idea. The Stanford search primer includes very helpful attachments with boiler plate PPMs. however, having just completed several rounds of reviews of my PPM with a veteran searcher, there are levels to this. Several nuances to positioning yourself and your search approach in the most compelling way, including standard items that investors will absolutely need to know are there if they check.....all while knowing that they will spend about 5 minutes reading the PPM then drill down on maybe 3 parts. lol

Reply by a searcher
from Roosevelt University in Boston, MA, USA

Hi Charles, thanks for sharing. Without stating the obvious, does your application ask for a PPM? It may be easiest to just ask for it. IMO, PPMs are a filtering mechanism akin to asking an applicant to submit a long essay. Most applicants wont do all the work required.

Still, there is a more time efficient way to ask the interviewee questions which show the searcher/applicant's preparation. Most PPMs are mostly boilerplate anyway. Why not ask applicants to answer search questions in an essay form?

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