--- title: "Investment RFP: Guide for Investor Relations Teams" url: "https://www.arphie.ai/blog/investment-rfp" collection: blog lastUpdated: 2026-07-28T23:38:30.885Z --- # Investment RFP: Guide for Investor Relations Teams An **investment request for proposal (RFP)** is a formal request, usually delivered as a structured questionnaire, that an asset owner issues to compare investment managers, outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) providers, consultants, custodians, or other investment service firms. This guide focuses on investment-firm responses. At those firms, the investor relations (IR) or capital formation team usually runs the workstream: it interprets the request, coordinates contributors, assembles evidence, manages reviews, and delivers the final submission. That ownership distinction matters. The asset owner controls the search and selects the provider, sometimes with help from an investment consultant. The IR or capital formation lead at the responding investment firm controls the workstream, but relies on investment, performance, operations, finance, legal, compliance, and client-service specialists for the claims they own. At some firms, a dedicated proposal or RFP team runs the mechanics in partnership with IR or capital formation; ownership also varies for non-manager respondents such as consultants and custodians. An investment RFP may look like a standard RFP, yet the evidence is unusually sensitive to scope and time. The request often covers the firm, team, investment process, performance, risk, operations, service model, fees, and conflicts. A response can read well and still mislead the evaluator if it uses outdated performance, confuses firm-level and strategy-level data, or contradicts an attachment. IR and capital formation teams therefore need a workflow that makes every answer traceable to the right entity, product or mandate, period, source, and approver. ## Investment RFP at a glance | Question | Practical answer | | --- | --- | | Who issues it? | An asset owner, such as an endowment, foundation, pension plan, or family office, through its staff or investment committee and sometimes with an investment consultant. | | Who responds? | An asset manager, OCIO, investment consultant, custodian, advisor, or specialist service provider. | | Who runs the response? | At an investment firm, an IR or capital formation lead usually owns the workstream and coordinates specialist contributors. | | What is the decision? | Whether the respondent fits the mandate, governance needs, risk tolerance, operating model, and fee expectations. | | What makes the response unusual? | Performance, holdings, people, risk, fees, and regulatory facts change on different schedules and require specialized review. | [Merrill's nonprofit-focused guide to the investment RFP process](https://www.ml.com/articles/the-request-for-proposal.html) describes the goal as collecting complete, comparable proposals from qualified investment service providers and evaluating them fairly. The structured questionnaire gives the issuer a defensible basis for comparison. For the respondent, IR or capital formation must preserve that comparability while presenting a clear investment case. ## How Arphie supports investment RFP teams Arphie is designed for the respondent-side teams doing this operational work. Investor relations and capital formation teams at venture capital, private equity, hedge fund, real estate, and other investment firms use it to answer RFPs and due diligence questionnaires (DDQs) from limited partners (LPs). An IR lead still needs accountable specialists to validate the substance. [Arphie's investor-relations workflow](https://www.arphie.ai/investor-relations) helps the coordinating team draft from compliance-approved answers and connected sources, coordinate contributions from fund operations, investment, performance, reporting, finance, legal, and compliance owners, and manage review and sign-off in one auditable workflow. The platform makes the response process easier to run; it does not transfer responsibility for investment, performance, fee, or regulatory claims away from the people qualified to approve them. ## What does an investment RFP ask? The questionnaire changes with the mandate. An OCIO search, a specialist investment strategy, and a custodian search will not use the same scorecard. Still, IR and capital formation teams at investment managers repeatedly coordinate the following categories of evidence. ### Organization and ownership The issuer may request legal entities, ownership, firm history, assets under management, financial condition, material business changes, office locations, and evidence of organizational stability. IR should distinguish firm-wide information from strategy, vehicle, affiliate, and regional information before reusing any standard answer. ### Team and governance Questions often cover biographies, roles, tenure, decision rights, succession, turnover, capacity, compensation, and the people assigned to the mandate. The IR lead can maintain the narrative and response format, but investment and business leaders should confirm who makes decisions, who provides challenge, and who remains accountable to the client. ### Investment philosophy and process The response needs to show how ideas enter the process, how research becomes a portfolio decision, how the portfolio is constructed, which limits apply, and what can change the team's view. IR and capital formation teams translate the investment process into a clear, mandate-specific explanation, while investment professionals validate that the description reflects current practice. ### Portfolio, performance, and attribution Investment RFPs frequently request historical returns, benchmarks, risk measures, drawdowns, attribution, exposures, and representative portfolios. [Fidelity's nonprofit RFP guidance](https://institutional.fidelity.com/institutions/insights/topics/investing-ideas/the-laymans-guide-to-request-for-proposals-rfps) recommends requesting gross and net returns, benchmark comparisons, risk-adjusted metrics, attribution, and Global Investment Performance Standards (GIPS) compliant results when relevant. IR should not rebuild these figures inside the proposal. It should collect them from the approved performance source and make the context explicit: period, as-of date, currency, gross or net basis, benchmark, composite or account basis, and whether results are actual, representative, or hypothetical. Performance and compliance owners must review the figures and required disclosures before submission. ### Risk management The request may cover investment, liquidity, concentration, counterparty, operational, model, cyber, climate, and reputational risk. IR can coordinate the answer, but the relevant risk owner should explain how each material risk is measured, who reviews it, which limits and escalation rules apply, and how the process worked in a relevant market environment. ### Operations, compliance, and service These sections can span trading, valuation, business continuity, cybersecurity, regulatory status, material litigation, compliance testing, administrators, custodians, reporting, onboarding, client service, and audit or assurance evidence. IR and capital formation teams need to keep the scope, effective dates, and terminology consistent while operations, information security, legal, compliance, and service owners approve their respective content. ### Fees, conflicts, and commercial terms The proposal should make the fee schedule, breakpoints, minimums, performance fees where applicable, estimated pass-through expenses, and comparison assumptions easy to understand. It should also disclose relevant conflicts and the controls used to manage them. The IR or capital formation lead assembles the commercial offer, with finance, commercial, legal, and compliance review where required. ## Investment RFP vs. investment DDQ An investment RFP and an investment DDQ often reach the same IR or capital formation team and reuse some of the same approved evidence. They are not interchangeable, however, because they support different decisions. | Dimension | Investment RFP | Investment DDQ | | --- | --- | --- | | Primary purpose | Select or re-evaluate a provider for a mandate. | Examine the firm, strategy, vehicle, operations, and risks in depth. | | Typical stage | Competitive search or periodic provider review. | Initial diligence, finalist diligence, onboarding, or ongoing monitoring. | | Emphasis | Fit, solution, service, performance, fees, and differentiation. | Detailed factual validation, controls, risks, and supporting evidence. | | Response style | Comparative and mandate-specific. | Precise, evidence-heavy, and often standardized. | | Respondent-side owner | Often coordinated by IR, capital formation, or a proposal lead at the investment firm. | Often coordinated by the same team, with heavier specialist diligence input. | | Outcome | Shortlist, presentation, negotiation, or selection. | Clear findings, follow-up questions, monitoring, or approval. | An RFP may include a complete DDQ, and a manager that advances may receive deeper diligence questions later. IR teams can reuse approved evidence across both workflows, but they should check the scope, date, vehicle, and mandate before carrying an answer forward. Our [investor-relations DDQ guide](https://www.arphie.ai/blog/mastering-the-art-of-responding-to-due-diligence-questionnaires) explains the evidence and review discipline that applies to both. ## How IR and capital formation teams respond to an investment RFP ### 1. Qualify the mandate Before mobilizing contributors, the IR or capital formation lead should coordinate the bid decision with investment and firm leadership. Confirm that the strategy, vehicle, capacity, minimum account size, liquidity, risk limits, geography, client type, timeline, and service expectations fit. Flag any mandatory qualification the firm cannot meet and route proposed exceptions for early approval. The bid decision should also reflect competitive position, relationship context, and the specialist time required. Eligibility alone does not make an opportunity a good use of scarce investment-team and specialist-review capacity. ### 2. Lock the requirements and timeline IR should inventory the questionnaire, appendices, portal fields, data templates, contract documents, and attachments. Capture the question deadline, submission deadline and time zone, finalist dates, file limits, signatures, and every required format. Turn that inventory into a compliance matrix that maps each requirement to its answer location, accountable contributor, evidence source, approver, and status. Keep the issuer's numbering so evaluators can score the submission without reconstructing it. ### 3. Define the scope of every fact Before drafting, the coordinating team should classify each requested fact as firm, affiliate, strategy, composite, vehicle, account, product, team, or mandate specific. It should also record the effective or as-of date. This discipline helps IR prevent common response errors such as: - Using global assets under management when the question asks about the proposed strategy. - Describing an affiliate's capability as if it belonged to the bidding entity. - Giving firm-wide headcount for the dedicated client team. - Mixing a representative portfolio with the proposed mandate. - Carrying old ownership, staffing, or regulatory information into a current response. ### 4. Build an approved evidence map IR and capital formation teams should connect quantitative and sensitive answers to authoritative sources rather than treating an old response as proof. The evidence map will typically draw from: - Approved firm and strategy descriptions. - Performance and composite systems. - Portfolio and risk reports. - Finance-approved assets and flows. - Compliance and regulatory records. - Audited financial or assurance reports. - Fee schedules and legal templates. - Team biographies and organization records. - Client-service, onboarding, and reporting materials. Record the source owner, applicable scope, and review date. A reusable content library is safer and more useful when the IR team can tell whether an answer is current and appropriate for the request in front of it. ### 5. Draft the investment case for the mandate The IR or capital formation lead should start with the issuer's objectives and constraints, then connect the proposed team, process, portfolio, and service model to them. Standard language can supply approved building blocks, but the response should not collapse into a generic firm history. If the issuer prioritizes liquidity, for example, address the relevant portfolio construction rules, liquidity monitoring, governance, and reporting. If downside protection is central, define the risk and explain how the investment process measures and manages it. Specific evidence is more useful than broad adjectives. ### 6. Govern performance and portfolio answers IR should treat every performance-related answer as controlled content. Use approved figures and disclosures, then verify dates, calculation basis, benchmark, currency, fees, composite definition, portability, and whether the results are actual or hypothetical. Merrill recommends that issuers ask whether returns include fees and whether they are hypothetical, representative-client results, or composites. The response should answer those points directly, even when the template does not state them clearly. Before the package leaves the firm, a qualified performance or compliance owner should approve every table, chart, attribution statement, ranking, award, and performance-related claim. Generative AI should not calculate returns, invent missing periods, or assume that one data series can stand in for another. ### 7. Make service, fees, and conflicts comparable IR or capital formation should describe who will serve the client, meeting cadence, reporting, education, transition support, escalation, and any work required from the issuer. Those commitments need to match the staffing plan and commercial proposal. Place qualifications beside the fee or service statement they affect. Identify optional services, third-party expenses, breakpoints, minimums, and assumptions. State actual or potential conflicts and the controls used to manage them. ### 8. Run specialist reviews in sequence The IR lead owns the coordinated response, not every underlying claim. A practical review path includes: - Investment team review for philosophy, process, portfolio, and mandate fit. - Performance and risk owner review for returns, attribution, benchmarks, and risk data. - Operations, information security, and client-service review for their sections. - Legal and compliance review for regulatory facts, conflicts, disclosures, and claims. - Finance or commercial owner review for fees and assumptions. - IR, capital formation, or proposal lead review for completeness, consistency, and voice. - Accountable executive review for the final offer, where required. Keep comments and approvals in the controlled response rather than circulating multiple competing files. That lets IR see what is unresolved and prevents an outdated edit from returning to the final package. ### 9. Assemble and submit the exact response Before submission, IR should verify every mandatory answer, attachment, declaration, file name, limit, signature, and portal field. Reconcile the questionnaire with the performance book, fee file, appendices, and cover letter. Then render the final files and inspect them as the evaluator will receive them. Submit before the deadline, save the receipt, and preserve a final, access-controlled archive copy of the full package. That record gives the IR team a reliable basis for clarification questions, finalist work, ongoing diligence, and the next request. ## Investment RFP response checklist for IR teams | Area | Final check | | --- | --- | | Ownership | IR or capital formation owns the workflow, and every specialist claim has a named approver. | | Scope | Every answer uses the correct firm, strategy, vehicle, account, team, and as-of date. | | Performance | Returns, benchmarks, fees, currency, periods, disclosures, and actual or hypothetical status are clear. | | People | Named roles, tenure, capacity, succession, and client coverage agree across the response. | | Risk | Measures, limits, governance, exceptions, and escalation are specific to the proposed approach. | | Operations | Providers, controls, reporting, business continuity, and onboarding evidence are current. | | Fees | Schedule, breakpoints, minimums, expenses, optional services, and assumptions are comparable. | | Conflicts | Relevant conflicts and management controls are disclosed. | | Compliance | Every required field, attachment, signature, format, and deadline is satisfied. | ## How AI can support IR without becoming the investment authority For IR and capital formation teams, AI can reduce the manual work of searching, copying, formatting, and chasing contributors. It can extract questions, find relevant approved answers, draft from cited source material, flag inconsistent dates, suggest subject-matter owners, and track reviews. Fluent prose is not a substitute for controls. Performance, portfolio, fee, regulatory, and commitment-heavy answers still require authoritative data and accountable approval. IR teams should be able to see the source behind a draft, identify uncertainty, and route the answer to the right specialist. Arphie's [AI agents for investor-relations questionnaires](https://www.arphie.ai/investor-relations) help IR and capital formation teams work from connected company knowledge, create source-backed first drafts, coordinate reviewers, and retain an audit trail across RFPs and DDQs. The platform supports the team that runs the response; investment, legal, compliance, performance, and other specialists retain authority over their claims.