Skip to content

Due Diligence Symposium Done Right

With non-traded REITs making news on a daily basis, there’s plenty of incentive for due diligence officers (DDO) to keep up on products, regulations, and the third party reviewer. With so many real estate products to review and monitor on an ongoing basis, how does a DDO find the time?

Those that attended the Mick & Associates P.C., LLO (Mick) Real Estate Symposium in Atlanta in mid-October, have that answer.

Mick’s symposium is designed with independent broker-dealer senior executives and due diligence officers in mind. These folks don’t want a sales pitch; they prefer the facts and that’s what the Mick & Associates Real Estate Symposium delivers.

Bryan S. Mick, President of Mick, says, “Our goals in hosting the Real Estate Symposium center around the chief executives and senior DDO’s of our client firms. We want to separate the Mick symposium from industry events that focus primarily on sales relationships. There are no booths, no tchotchkes, no handing out your PPMs. It is an educational-centric format that does allow our clients to interact with the issuer firm principals, and the former are more at ease knowing that our firm has done the due diligence or is in the process.” 

Bryan Mick and his team work hard to keep the event focused on education. Sponsors were reminded to deliver value when presenting to the audience, and that they did. Each was given 25 minutes to present to an audience of about 120 attendees, 60 of which were from broker-dealers and RIA/Family Offices.

Topics ranged from finding value in real estate through development, repurposing or repositioning, leveraging industry relationships, locating the right tenants, among others.

Bryan Mick and his staff engaged speakers with thoughtful questions that clearly demonstrated how tough questions deliver answers, and ultimately, a more thorough due diligence review.

Additionally, the symposium offered several deliberately varied panel discussions. Topics included opportunities in hospitality, REIT valuations and limitations, multifamily data and investment strategies, DSTs, special situation investing, and custody and valuations of alternative assets.

The symposium also hosted two high-profile guest speakers.

Dick Parsons, a former chairman of Citigroup, and current Senior Advisor with Providence Equity, LLC and Interim CEO of the Los Angeles Clippers of the NBA, plus Fran Tarkenton, CEO of Tarkenton Financial and an NFL Hall of Fame Inductee, both provided inspirational talks with lessons from their careers.

This was a well organized, educationally packed event, but Mick’s not in the conference business. They do this strictly as a service to clients. In fact, it costs Mick money to host the event.

“The symposium is revenue negative to Mick & Associates. Each sponsoring company pays a fixed fee, and Mick & Associates pays the same. Consistent with our insistence that industry investment sponsors be transparent and accountable, we provide a cost summary by line item post-conference and send a refund check to each sponsor,” shared Bryan Mick.

Mick’s next event will be its 2015 Energy Symposium.

Bryan Mick says it’s, “held in either Dallas or Houston in February, at which we focus on oil and gas tax planning, independent underwriting by our petroleum engineers, asset class, drilling, royalties, MLPs, education.”

To learn more about Mick & Associates, click here.