Before you invest investigate.

Or, maybe you’ve already made an investment and its not working out. Why?

We have no idea. But we do know how to identity people who have the answers. We track them down and discreetly ask them the right questions: Are the managers competent? What experience do they have? Do they have an agenda? Who are the ultimate beneficiaries? Do you understand the market? It might be changing. There might be new regulations.

You should look at the big picture — Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) issues. And isolated red flags — maybe one of the executives has been associated with money laundering or a sanctions breach. Are any of the subjects PEPs, politically exposed persons? Are they been associated with other projects gone bad, or corruption or issues concerning human rights?

Investing comes with risk but you can manage risk with what is politely termed KYC (Know Your Customer), or Integrity Due Diligence (IDD) or simply ‘Corporate Investigations’. Our work is often part of ‘regulatory compliance’; companies, banks and organizations are required to research potential partners ahead of a  mergers, acquisitions or other transactions. Or before appointing an executive or member of a board.

At Hechtech, we mostly undertake just one part of risk management known as ‘source inquiries’, or ‘Humint’ in  CIA lingo:  We find and interview sources – people with knowledge of the subject. They may be former employees, managers, and investors. They may be competitors, customers, regulators, and industry experts. We work for some of the world’s biggest risk consultancies, as well as boutiques and individuals. They are often intermediaries for clients whose identity we never know.

I’ve honed my investigative and interview skills as a journalist for international English language news outlets, mostly covering Africa. But we’ve undertaken projects pretty well everywhere where people speak English, French or German.

We are a small team of researchers and writers based in Ghana. Our detailed reports are what we get paid for. My team and I go through every word a source has told me, pointing out any little thing that could be relevant. We pride ourselves on carefully editing and footnoting to ensure that what we produce is accurate, concise, easy to understand, a pleasure to read and – most of all – useful.

The reports are strictly confidential, so very few people ever get to read them. But we must be doing something right as we keep getting lots of interesting projects.

Please contact us if you are interested.