For two decades and across four continents, Sinclair Capital has been the quiet ingredient for corporate governance success in scores of situations across four continents.
- Engagement. Sinclair advised a Fortune 50 company on its successful negotiations with a major shareowner, thereby avoiding a proxy issue.
- Activism/Proxy Contests. Sinclair has vetted more than 25 activist corporate governance and performance improvement plans.
- Thought Leadership. Sinclair’s white paper helped a British financial firm position itself as a leader in examining the interaction between financial markets and the real economy. The CEO of the firm was invited to speak to an All Party Parliamentary Group in the House of Commons, at two financial think tanks, and to the leadership of its regulator.
- Transactional Services. In the midst of a take-over situation, an insurance company approached Sinclair for a window into the mind of the institutional investor community. The Chairman of the holding company of the insurer credits Sinclair with adding more than a billion dollars in value to the deal.
- Benchmarking. When an Asian telecommunications company was about to IPO, it called upon Sinclair to benchmark its corporate governance. Sinclair’s on-site due diligence resulted in numerous changes to the company’s governance. The $12 billion IPO was successful.
We’ve done fiduciary reviews for some of the world’s largest investors. We’ve overseen multi-billion-dollar restructurings. We always remember it’s your money. We just maximize it.
- Fiduciary Reviews. Working with Funston Advisory Services, Sinclair has performed fiduciary reviews for many large pension funds and investment trusts with aggregate assets of more than $500 billion.
- Creditor Committee Representation. Sinclair has represented investors on the official creditors committees in complicated restructurings. In the WorldCom situation, Sinclair served on the CEO selection committee and was a negotiator of the settlement that enabled the company to emerge from bankruptcy and create billions of dollars in value.
- Service as an Independent Fiduciary. As a member of a litigation trust board, Sinclair helped negotiate two settlements of the Trust’s claims for a total of $130 million, despite two adverse decisions by courts shortly before the settlement negotiations.
- Crisis Management. A major international bank sought to fund a number of outside asset managers through a Bermuda reinsurance company. With two weeks until the plan was to go live, allocations had not been finalized, no contracts had been executed, and the bank’s counsel was raising liability concerns. Sinclair moved into the bank and established a “war room”. We mandated limited liability commodity pools, facilitated the execution of scores of documents, and managed to have the program go live, as scheduled.
Sinclair’s recommendations are bespoke to each client. Being high-touch means we’re not the least expensive. But it also means our recommendations are adopted and used.
- Self-diagnostics and Firm Positioning. A mortgage hedge fund was unable to attract institutional capital. Sinclair performed a top-to-bottom institutional-quality due diligence, examining front-, middle- and back-office issues, as well as marketing, terms and conditions, and principal qualifications. The partners agreed to implement 28 of the 32 specific, actionable recommendations. Assets increased more than 50% in a year.
- Product Development. Sinclair advised a major global asset management company about creating fixed income products to take advantage of the firm’s skill sets, resources, culture, and market position.
- ESG Integration. A US asset manager asked Sinclair to craft a specialized education program for its staff about integrating ESG factors into existing investment processes. Sinclair reframed the challenge into how to document and institutionalize processes already in place and then perform a gap analysis.
- Policy and Procedure Review/Development.Working with Funston Advisory Services, Sinclair created a business case for a $50 billion asset owner, showing how internalizing much of its asset management could save money, motivate staff, and increase its market knowledge. We calculated projected savings, detailed the systems and compliance procedures needed, as well as the headcount and compensation needs.
We serve when skilled board members are most needed — for a start-up, during a crisis, when a major new program/product is due to launch.
- Corporate Board. Confronted by a governance crisis, the Chairman of the Board of a major retailer asked Sinclair’s managing partner, Jon Lukomnik, to join the Board. Jon chaired both the investment committee and the nominating and governance committee, and served on the audit committee. He helped steer the company through its governance crisis and saved its pension fund hundreds of millions of dollars through proper positioning vis a vis its liability.
- Investment Committee. Sinclair has served on numerous investment committees, from a start-up registered investment advisor to a hedge fund to a hedge fund of funds to the treasury department of a major international bank. Given Sinclair’s independence, those firms have particularly valued Sinclair’s ability to be the “antidote to group think” as well as the decades of institutional investing experience we bring.
- Private Company. Sinclair helped prepare this private-equity owned company to go public. The company attracted a takeover offer, resulting in a major gain for the original private equity sponsor.
- Advisory Board. Sinclair has served on the advisory board of a number of hedge funds and, financial technology start-ups. The two most recent have both had successful “A” rounds.
When we ask, “What can we do for you?” it’s not a rhetorical question. Sinclair Capital does not have a menu of pre-set services into which a client’s problem is shoehorned. Instead, we apply our unique set of experiences, skills and resources to your needs. resources, constraints and culture to design implementable solutions to complex problems.
Find out how we can assist you and your business.
