This column has already lasted 23 weeks in a row. This is an occasion to think about the fact that amazing projects can be realized in the real assets world in 23 weeks – if only it didn’t take so disproportionately long to raise the necessary funds. Is the fund industry an anachronistic obstructionist?
Projektspeed in Realwirtschaft
Amazing things can be built in 23 weeks.
VolkerFitzpatrick had built a new delivery office for Royal Mail in South Shields in northern England – including a 1,200 square metre new building, office space, yard and PV system. Program: 23 weeks.
The University of Oxford had structural adjustments made to the Richard Doll Building with a clearly defined 23-week program .
And in Melbourne, the new 6,250-square-metre headquarters of the law firm Maddocks – including a barista bar, conservatory and high-quality working environments – was realised in a 23-week programme .
23 weeks – or, by the way, the period over which this column is now running. And when you see what can be built in real life during this time, many a fund birth, which is nothing more than a sequence of a few legal acts on paper, seems surprisingly slow.
Structural inertia in the fund industry
Anyone who structures funds in practice and accompanies fund launches knows that less than nine months rarely pass between the first ideas and the first capital call, often more like twelve and even more.
Not because no one is working, quite the opposite. But because every structuring layer – KVG selection, vehicle, investment conditions, ESG concept, tax and insurance regulatory assessment, approvals, coordination of contracts with fund service providers and asset managers – must be carefully documented and coordinated.
So while projects are “out in real life” in 23 weeks, the fund world is faltering. The real economy is scaling its pace, the fund industry is sticking to processes. The fund industry is moving a long way away from the actual value creation: offering a simple shell for the allocation of capital for projects in real life.
Missiles are at the ramp, but fuel convoy is stuck in traffic jams
Capital is needed in the real economy today faster than our fund structures typically provide:
- Energy and infrastructure projects whose tender window is narrow and whose transformational impact is high.
- Logistics and data infrastructure that is built in months and then has to be efficient immediately.
- Real estate projects in which time delay directly eats up costs, opportunities and location quality.
At the same time, we see in other industries:
credit processes, payment transactions, trade and supply chain control, risk and fraud detection – all highly complex, highly regulated and yet increasingly digital, standardized, AI-supported, with decision-making cycles in days instead of quarters.
Against this background, a one-year standard lead time to the fund launch no longer seems like an expression of deliberate prudence, but like a system remnant from a slower time.
📌 Results and consequences:
- There is a gap between project speed and regulatory viscosity, through which capital comes too late in the worst case. This is not just an industry issue, but an economic policy question if capital does not reach projects.
- How do we finance the energy transition, infrastructure, digitalization, healthcare real estate and utility systems if the central channel for long-term capital is structurally too slow?
- The answer lies not only in “less regulation”, but in their better organization:
- Stronger process-based instead of repetitive special solutions,
- Simplified, digital processes
- Reliable use due to technological mapping
The fund industry invests in assets that are themselves exposed to and master permanent pressure to innovate and adapt. Market participants in the fund industry must therefore question themselves much more strongly as to how they could better organise the supply of capital and thus also make their contribution. Otherwise, it is not a page of glory for the entire industry, which claims to be the backbone of long-term financing.
