As The Audit World Turns

September 26, 2024

Hello there,

Welcome again to any newcomers!

September is my favorite month of the year, golf weather is better, the pool is still open, but the nights have cooled to allow for some fire pit action, and my wife and I celebrate both our birthdays and wedding anniversary this month.

For us, September so far was highlighted with Parents Weekend at UC with my daughter, Andie. I had never been on campus during a UC football game, and I have to say, it was a wild, exhausting day that had me thinking what I must have dragged my own parents through when I was at UK. UC is radically different than UK, its an urban campus with the football stadium on campus and within walking distance of all the bars. The kids sort of migrate between groups at the game and at various bars creating what I can only describe as the closest experience to Mardi Gras I have seen in awhile.

My lowlight of the day was agreeing to play cornhole with my daughter’s friend, AJ, who swore he was a legit player. We got smoked by 2 freshman who called the game ‘easy’. The highlight was hanging with these 3 ladies for an entire day! 

Keep reading to get our SEC update and more below!

Last week’s update:

In today’s update:

  • As The Audit World Turns
  • Data: US Debt is Literally a Mountain
  • Connetic Corner: Still feels good!
  • Super Interesting Reads:  Private Equity Super Cycle, People On The Move, and AI
  • Cool AF: In Honor of The Presidents Cup
  • Quarterly Fact Card

By: Brad Zapp, CFP®,

Portfolio Manager, SVP

As The Audit World Turns

If you aren’t ready for a soap opera, you should just skip over this, lol.

So, 2 weeks ago the audit was over 🚀, to the moon, we have lift off, and all that. Well, the rocket ship sort of crashed back to earth. Now it didn’t crash and burn, we just had failure to lift off but are planning new liftoff between 9/30 and 10/7 which is a 1–2-week delay since the last update.

So, what happened and how can we make sense of it…. I don’t know. I’m frustrated and exhausted, we have entered a state of ‘stranger things’ where the world is upside down.  There is so much form over function going on and lack of communication, its almost comical if it didn’t mean so much to all of us. So, the SEC didn’t like the form of the financial statements, the numbers were fine. Then the auditors didn’t want to change the financial statements, and to do that, they needed to sort of recalibrate themselves by redoing the statements and then going thru the approval process again. Now that is not redoing the audit, it is not changing numbers, its simply re-approving the new statements because the form has changed.

Now, in hindsight we should have sent a draft to the SEC is what I learned, which we did this time around. We expect the SEC to make comments on Tuesday (9/24, as I’m writing this), we then expect the auditor to issue a positive opinion, also today if not tomorrow. From there, we must include the finalized financial statements in our registration document (form N2). And now the auditor wants a new step, they want to consent to the including but want to see it before they consent, and they say that step takes 3 business days (which translated in my mind, means 6). After the consent, we then send back to the SEC for effective, which since they already would have reviewed the draft, we expect a launch 🚀.  Look if this sounds like de ja vu, it’s because it is. I don’t know at what point I fall on the sword, say I shoulda, coulda, woulda, or at what point do I take the sword and chop some heads……trust me what I feel inside myself is very confusing feelings.

Bottom line, no one has ever done exactly what we are doing, so no one has a roadmap.  I find the vendors and government agencies are highly overconfident on the steps and their abilities to execute, it’s like a bad line dancing session of the Electric Slide soundtrack, take 1 step forward, tap your foot, take 3 steps backward, tap your foot, lean in, and back, now turn and go, its electric! Boogie woogie woogie!! I have attempted to ‘sandbag’ this entire process, when I originally told you July 7th was the day, and now likely October 7 is the day, its kind of hard to comprehend. Dare I say this time we are right? Yeah, the dance is over, its go time, stay tuned as I do think these are now day to day, let’s go!!

Data – US Debt is Literally a Mountain

I saw this chart on X, and it was so tall, I had to scroll the page to get a full view, I think this might be the first chart I have ever seen not fit on 1 page.  I’ll let all the Economists in this group decide as to the why and what, but for me, that’s 1 tall mountain, so tall, I literally had to cut off the top!

Originally posted by Agrist Nexus, @AgoristN on X

Data – AUM & Portfolio Count

“The world feels good at Connetic this week” Remember that statement last update? You know what, it still feels good this week too.

Regardless of my professional opinion of execution issues of our vendors, its happening, and every time I want to chop heads, I remind myself, its happening and that’s the goal. I’m not very patient anyways, so maybe this all feels par for the course to other people, and you know what, fine. If you all close your eyes and vision me dealing with auditors and SEC lawyers it’s a funny scene that plays out, and if I recorded my reality, it would be just as funny.

I will say this, the hard work and setbacks is an easy way to see what you have in a team and who’s got your back. This week at our monthly C.H.A.R.G.E award, Brian McDermott our CFO is getting the well-deserved award. Brian deals with the auditors much more than I do, but the man has the patience of an old Clydesdale (I’m more of a jackass), and I’m not certain we would be successful without him. So, cheers to Brian, he is a big level up to your team! 

In closing- look, I need your help, no more long term commitments, but we really could use some Day 1/week 1/month 1 investors, it looks good on our reports and helps us fund a back up of deal opportunities we have. ANY amount is fine!

Existing investors: If you would just call or email me any deposit amount you could add to your account, and I will send you a { insert subsequent investment } for your signature via email.

If you are a new investor Just email me (bzapp@conneticventures.com) and I can send you an application.

If you would like to transfer a portion of an IRA Talk to your financial advisor or you can open a self directed IRA at Inspira here

 Account Opening – Secure Online Portal

Big days ahead 🚀

Super Interesting Reads

Is this the beginning of a PE Super Cycle? Super Cycle

I’m on the Move again Zapp 40 Under 40 Shout Out

AI has a Memory Problem Deep & Nerdy Article on AI

Cool AF of The Week

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