Portfolio Watchlist Criteria Template
Three documents and three sheets that date when a trigger fires against when a partner actually responds, not only whether the trigger was right.
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Risk Register
[Fund] — Portfolio Watchlist
One row per company currently or recently flagged, not the whole portfolio. A blank register is the statement that nothing has fired.
| Company | Tier | Trigger met | Date identified | Status | Related prior alert |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | — | — | — | — |
| — | — | — | — | — | — |
| — | — | — | — | — | — |
The last column is what a rule-based trigger test cannot see about itself: whether an earlier, smaller alert on the same issue already fired and went unactioned before this one did.
Marrowfield Labs' cash-out date crossed into Tier 1 territory in April, and the partner call the fund's own escalation criteria call for within five business days happened on 11 May, two business days late. Read on its own, that looks like a minor miss. The same underlying reporting gap first tripped a Tier 2 alert in February, fifty-nine days earlier, and nobody closed it. Counted from that first alert instead of the escalation, eighty days passed between a rule firing and a partner actually getting on a call, not two.
Every portfolio watchlist page on page one lists red flags: declining metrics, missed reporting, a departure. None say what happens after one fires. A rule that spots risk and a rule that gets a timely response look identical the moment they trigger. Escalation criteria, like the portfolio monitoring template this pack reads from, are built to detect, not to track what happens next. Draycott Mobility's Tier 1 trigger had no history behind it and got a call one business day ahead of target, which a dated response clock can show and a checklist cannot.
Invest Europe's Professional Standards Handbook tells a GP to take rapid action once monitoring reveals a portfolio company is not performing, without defining what rapid means or requiring a record of when action actually followed. Lenders already formalise that gap: the OCC's Comptroller's Handbook on leveraged lending requires banks to set a clear, quantifiable timeframe for every adversely rated borrower's action plan, reviewed regularly for accuracy. A venture or growth portfolio watchlist rarely borrows either the deadline or the review.
What's in the pack
Risk Register
One row per flagged company, with the trigger, the date identified, and any related prior alert behind it
Runway Alert Register
The cash-out-date subset of the register, with the full response clock in business days against each tier's target
Action Tracker
The decision layer underneath both registers: what got decided, by whom, and the next checkpoint date
Watchlist Criteria
The two response clocks a fired trigger owes the partnership, and what actually closes an entry
Intervention Options Note
A fixed menu by trigger category, with what each option does not fix stated beside what it does
Partner Brief
The one-page format prepared before a Tier 1 call, not a summary written after it happened
Response Clock Sweep
Weekly check of every open entry against its response target, and any newly crossed cash-out threshold
How it works
- 1
Import the trigger
Whatever your escalation criteria already flagged, or a reporting gap a founder update analysis surfaced on its own, with the tier and the date the condition actually became true.
- 2
Date the identification
Log the day it was actually identified, separate from when the condition became true, since a review cadence and a continuous rule rarely catch it on the same day.
- 3
Weigh the options
Pick from the fixed menu by trigger category, and read what the chosen option does not fix before treating it as a full response.
- 4
Close on a decision
Not on silence. Log the decision, and either the outcome or a next checkpoint date, so an open row with nothing scheduled cannot exist.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the response clock matter if the trigger fired correctly?
Because a correct trigger and a timely response are two separate facts, and only one of them is what the escalation criteria test for. Marrowfield Labs' Tier 1 alert was correct and current, computed from restated figures on the scheduled review date. The response to it still landed two business days past target, and that gap is invisible unless something dates it.
Why measure from the first alert instead of the one that escalated?
Because the escalation is often not the first sign. Marrowfield's Tier 1 trigger traces back to a Tier 2 alert that fired fifty-nine days earlier and was never closed. Counted from the escalation alone, the response looks two business days late. Counted from the first alert, eighty days passed before a partner acted, which is the number that actually describes what happened.
How is this different from the reporting standard's escalation criteria?
The escalation criteria decide whether something fires, tested against restated figures on a fixed schedule, which is the discipline this pack reads from rather than repeats. This pack starts one step later, at the moment a trigger already fired, and tracks the response clock, the options considered, and the decision, none of which a trigger test alone can see.
Does a Tier 1 trigger mean the position gets written down?
No. A trigger is a signal to respond on a stated clock, not a valuation conclusion. What a flagged company's numbers imply for the position itself, and whether the portfolio's shape still matches the fund's intended construction, are different questions answered in the investment committee memo and in a portfolio construction review, not here.
Does a closed entry feed the next board meeting or LP update?
It can, and it should read the same restated figures either way. A closed Tier 1 entry with a bridge conversation opened is exactly the kind of prior commitment a board meeting pre-read should carry forward. It is exactly the kind of support a fund can later evidence in its own portfolio support log.
Should every flagged company end in financing or a departure?
No, and in the worked quarter, none of the four did. Two of the four entries closed with no capital or governance action at all, once the underlying fact was checked. A bridge conversation is the top of the runway menu, used here for the one company carrying an unclosed prior alert; reserve implications get modelled separately once a direction is chosen.
What format are the downloaded files?
Word documents for the watchlist criteria, the intervention options note and the partner brief, and CSV for the three sheets. The documents open in Word, Pages and Google Docs. The sheets open in Excel, Numbers and Sheets with the columns intact, and no conversion step in between.
Find out which of your flagged companies are past their response target
Send your escalation criteria or the reporting behind them. The first pass builds a Risk Register dated by identification, not just by whether a trigger currently holds.
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