BALLAST CAPITAL ADVISORY

Case studies

The work itself, below the waterline.

Here is what an engagement with Ballast looks like from the inside: the situation a sponsor was in, what got built, what it changed, and what the client said once it was done. Every engagement below is published with client permission, and figures and identifying details appear only where clients have approved them.

"Danielle was my point of contact in her full-time capacity as Director of Investor Relations while at a prominent real estate investment firm I had investments with. She's excellent at what she does, which is ensuring investors are taken care of and informed throughout the entire investment process, even before any commitment is made. I've followed her career for nearly ten years and would gladly recommend her services to any investment sponsor looking to establish or enhance their investor relations platform."
Mark A
Real Estate Investor

Selected engagements

01 Fractional investor relations

An embedded IR function for a real estate fund

Tony G · Ocean Avenue Realty Fund

The situation

The sponsor was raising $10 million under Rule 506(c) for the adaptive reuse of a vacant North Waterfront office building in San Francisco into 76 residences. The deal, the design and the entitlement path were in hand. What did not exist was an investor-facing version of any of it: a single document a family office could read end to end, a presentation whose figures agreed with the underwriting model, or anyone to run the offering process behind it.

The work

The engagement began with the Investment Overview: structuring the narrative, writing the copy, building the financial exhibits, and reconciling every figure in the presentation back to the model so the sell-out, the cost basis, the waterfall and the return profile said the same thing in every document. From there came the operating layer underneath it. Investor pipeline and CRM, a data room audited and rebuilt in investor-diligence order, an open-items tracker with owners and dates, meeting briefs and anticipated-question preparation, approved follow-up communications, onboarding and subscription tracking, and a single offering calendar coordinating the principals, securities counsel and fund administration.

Title page of the investment presentation prepared for the North Waterfront adaptive reuse offering.
Investment presentation, title page. Published with client permission.

Deliverables

  • Investment Overview, written and designed
  • Financial exhibits reconciled to the underwriting model
  • Investor pipeline and CRM build
  • Data room audit, structure and population
  • Diligence open-items tracker
  • Meeting briefs, anticipated questions and follow-up coordination
  • Onboarding, subscription and accreditation workflow tracking
  • Weekly pipeline reporting and a single offering calendar

Outcome

The Investment Overview engagement turned into a retained one. Tony brought Ballast on for a firm three-month consulting term to support the capital raise, a $10 million equity raise for the condominium conversion, with investor relations running as a continuing function inside the offering rather than a document handed over at the end.

Danielle is exceptional. She took a complex real estate offering and turned it into clear, compelling investor materials, with a sharp eye for detail that extended well beyond the copy into the financial model and presentation. She is organized, proactive, and a true partner who keeps the whole team moving. We were so impressed that we brought her on in an ongoing investor relations role. Hire her without hesitation.
Tony G · Ocean Avenue Realty Fund
02 Capital strategy & positioning

Positioning and copy for a new co-GP syndication platform

Terry S · Bartizan Capital

The situation

A capital markets veteran with more than thirty years across acquisitions, capital formation, structured finance, asset management, and brokerage was launching a new platform to syndicate private capital into co-GP investments. The experience was there, and more than $500 million of transaction history behind it. What did not exist was an articulated thesis, a way to explain the co-GP structure to two very different audiences, or a single place to send a family office. Two legacy websites described the work he used to do rather than the platform he was building.

The work

Three milestones over roughly two months. The first reviewed every existing asset, worked the open positioning questions through a discovery session, and produced a section-by-section website outline with the content gaps named up front. The second drafted the full copy suite: investment thesis, value-creation framework, investor-facing language for each strategy, the co-GP structure written in plain terms for both investors and operating partners, and the leadership narrative. The third ran coordination with the design and development team through build and launch, reviewing layouts and content implementation so the messaging survived the trip from copy document to live site.

A page from the launched Bartizan Capital website showing the four value-creation levers.
Bartizan Capital, live site. Copy and positioning by Ballast.

Deliverables

  • Website structure and section-by-section outline
  • Full copy suite across every page and section
  • Investor-facing positioning for each investment strategy
  • Plain-language explanation of the co-GP structure for both audiences
  • Leadership narrative and platform bio
  • Design and development coordination through launch

Outcome

Thirty years of transaction history became a stated investment thesis and an investor-facing presence a family office or a prospective GP partner can evaluate in one sitting. The platform is live at bartizancapital.com.

Danielle took my thirty years of real estate experience and transaction history and turned it into a polished platform story an investor can follow. She asked the questions I had not answered for myself, then stayed through design and launch to make sure the message survived the build. She did a great job taking the concepts and strategies envisioned for Bartizan Capital and turned them into clear, structured, and insightful content that captured the investment focus I wanted for the firm. Danielle was a pleasure to work with, went the extra mile, and I would work with her again in a heartbeat.
Terry S · Bartizan Capital
03 Underwriting & materials

Land development pro forma and offering memorandum

Brittingham Development Group · San Isidro

The situation

Brittingham is a family office-backed development and construction firm in Laredo, Texas, with three to four decades of combined experience across land development, residential lot development and industrial projects, and thousands of acres and thousands of finished lots behind it. Every one of those deals had been funded with the family’s own capital. Raising outside equity for the first time, against a 94.6-acre mixed-use assemblage in North Laredo under contract at $28.0 million, meant producing what the firm had never needed: a track record in investor format, an underwriting model an LP or a lender could interrogate, and materials that would survive family-office diligence. Outside of the company website and internal operating data, almost nothing existed.

The work

Four successive engagements. The first built the fund pitch deck from a blank page: market research, full slide copy, the land development investment thesis, builder relationships and exit strategy, plus reusable Excel templates for track record, case studies and a fund-level pro forma. The second took the firm’s existing workbook apart, tracing formulas for broken logic, circular references and hardcoded values, then restructured it around a single input dashboard a non-technical user could operate safely, and extended it to underwrite the commercial and residential components separately before consolidating them into deal-level returns. The third created a branded, reusable Investment Overview template and populated it with San Isidro. The fourth added the analysis investors actually test: integrated sensitivity tables, downside, base and upside scenarios, alternative LP economic terms, a phased-development case for the 46-acre mixed-use tract set directly against the bulk-sale strategy, and live output tabs wired so the model and the presentation can never quietly disagree.

Executive summary page from the San Isidro investment overview, showing the project snapshot and site aerial.
San Isidro Investment Overview, executive summary. Published with client permission.

Deliverables

  • Fund pitch deck, full copy and design
  • Track record, case study and fund pro forma Excel templates
  • Audited and restructured land development underwriting model
  • San Isidro underwriting: commercial and residential components, consolidated returns
  • Reusable Investment Overview template
  • San Isidro Investment Overview
  • Underwriting summary defending each key assumption
  • Sensitivity tables, downside/base/upside and LP term scenarios
  • Phased-development case for the 46-acre mixed-use tract
  • Presentation-ready, fully wired model output tabs

Outcome

A firm with no outside capital and no investor materials now has a diligence-ready package for a $41.0 million mixed-use land development: a 94.6-acre, 14-parcel assemblage acquired on a $28.0 million all-cash basis, underwritten to $57.2 million of gross proceeds, a 26.0% project IRR and a 1.37x LP equity multiple on $32.6 million of peak LP equity. The model and the Investment Overview carried the firm through family-office diligence and into LP conversations, and Andrew has engaged Ballast across four successive mandates.

The final deliverables were well-structured, polished, and incorporated feedback effectively. I've since hired her for several more fractional IR engagements.
Andrew B · Brittingham Development Group

Other voices

Other Client Engagements

Capital strategy & structuring

“Danielle has been the steadying voice while we figure out how to capitalize our land development syndications. She walked me through the realistic ways to structure and finance the deals, laid out what each option would cost us in simplicity, compliance and investor appeal, and told me plainly where the business decisions ended and where I needed real counsel. She also pointed me toward the right advisors instead of selling me something I did not need. I keep her on an hourly basis so I can pull in her expertise as questions come up, and that has turned out to be one of the better decisions I have made this year.”

Patrick E

Land development sponsor

Investor relations

“I held real estate investments with the firm where Danielle took over investor relations, and the difference was obvious from the first month. Reporting arrived when it was supposed to, questions came back answered properly the first time, and the process started to feel like it was being run by someone who had actually thought about it. She did not inherit a blank page either. She improved a platform that was already in place, which is the harder version of the job. She is a consummate professional and I would take a look at any real estate deal or sponsor she works for.”

Jonathan M

Former limited partner

Want to see the full version of any of these?

Complete work samples are shared under NDA on request, and an intro call is the easiest place to start.

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