Wide delta horizon at first light, embankment road running toward distant works

About us

Who we are,
and what we are for.

Fratres Limited is a strategic advisory and project facilitation company. We work in the distance between a credible opportunity in Bangladesh and a project that actually gets built.

The firm

A strategic advisory and project facilitation company, working in one market and taking it seriously.

Fratres supports the development and delivery of major strategic projects through investment facilitation, government relations, regulatory engagement and partnership development. Those four capabilities are applied together, on the same mandate, by the same accountable team. They are not products sold separately.

We are deliberately narrow in geography and deliberately broad in sector. Bangladesh is one market, but its ports, power, aviation, mining, transport and urban systems are governed by the same institutions, the same land constraints and the same approvals architecture. Depth in the country is worth more than breadth across a region.

The firm applies United Kingdom standards of conduct and data protection to work carried out in Bangladesh — a written acceptance test before any mandate, verified counterparties, an absolute prohibition on facilitation payments, and a documented route for anyone to raise a concern. Those standards are set out in full under governance and integrity.

Advisory

Nature of the firm

We advise and facilitate. We do not broker and we hold no client funds.

Four

Core capabilities

Facilitation, government relations, regulatory, partnerships

Selective

Mandate acceptance

A limited number of engagements at any one time

In-country

Delivery presence

Mandates are worked where the project is, not from another time zone

Colonnaded civic building in early morning light, empty forecourt

The bridge role

International capital and local delivery keep different clocks.

An international investor needs bankability: a defensible feasibility case, clean title, an approvals path with dates attached, a counterparty whose ownership can be traced to real people, and a contract that will survive a change of administration.

A ministry, an authority or a local sponsor needs something else entirely — confidence that the party in front of them will still be present in five years, that commitments made in a meeting will appear in a document, and that the project serves a public purpose they can defend afterwards.

Neither requirement is unreasonable. They are simply written in different languages, sequenced against different calendars, and rarely presented to one another in a form the other side can act on. Our work is to hold both positions at once, to say the same thing on both sides of the table, and to keep saying it until the project exists.

Why Bangladesh

What we doOur approach

Four capabilities, applied together.

Each capability has its own discipline and its own counterparties. None of them delivers a project on its own, which is why we do not offer them separately.

From first look to financial close

Investment Facilitation

We take international capital from initial market assessment through structuring, approvals and deployment — holding the process together across every counterparty it has to touch.

Institutional access, properly conducted

Government Relations

Structured, transparent engagement with ministries, authorities and regulators — building the institutional relationships that let a project be understood before it is judged.

Approvals, licensing and compliance pathways

Regulatory Engagement

Mapping and navigating the approvals architecture — BIDA, BEZA, PPP Authority, sector regulators — so that sequencing is understood before capital is committed.

The right local counterparty

Partnership Development

Identifying, assessing and structuring relationships with local partners, sponsors and operators — including the due diligence that determines whether a partnership should exist at all.

How engagements are structured

A written process, in a market where much is verbal.

The sequence below is the same on every mandate. Where a stage cannot be completed honestly, the engagement does not advance to the next one.

01
Enquiry and screening
Every engagement begins with a written enquiry rather than a meeting. We establish what is being asked, who is asking, and whether the mandate is one we can accept under our own governance standards. A material number of enquiries end here, and we say so directly rather than beginning work we intend to abandon.
02
Scoping and mandate definition
We define the question the engagement exists to answer, the counterparties it will have to touch, the approvals it depends on, and what completion actually means. Scope, fee basis, exclusions and duration are agreed in writing before any substantive work begins.
03
Assessment and structuring
Feasibility, regulatory sequencing, partner assessment and structuring options are worked in parallel rather than in series, because in Bangladesh each constrains the others. The output is a route with dependencies, owners and dates attached — not a recommendation without a path.
04
Engagement and execution
We convene and hold the process together: submissions, authority engagement, partner negotiation, diligence support and document flow. One partner remains accountable from beginning to end. The client deals with the firm rather than with a rotating cast of intermediaries.
05
Delivery and continuity
Work does not stop at signature. Registration, conditions precedent, drawdown, reporting obligations and the first operating year determine whether an investment performs. We remain in place through that period and hand over to a named client team deliberately.

Who we work with

Four kinds of counterparty, each wanting a different thing.

International investors and developers

Funds, strategic investors, developers and operators assessing first entry or expansion. They usually arrive with capital and sector capability, and without a settled view of the approvals path, the right local counterparty, or the order in which those two questions have to be resolved.

Private sector organisations

Bangladeshi companies, sponsors and operators seeking international capital, technology or an operating partner — and needing a proposition assembled to the standard an investment committee can actually assess rather than politely decline.

Government stakeholders

Ministries, authorities and public agencies developing projects that require private capital. The work is to make a public objective legible to an international market without altering what that objective is, and to present it through the correct channel and on the record.

Development finance institutions

Development finance institutions, export credit agencies and concessional lenders whose participation depends on standards being met — environmental and social safeguards, procurement integrity, verified ownership, and evidence in place of assurance.

What we are not

The limits are as important as the offer.

Advisory firms working near government in emerging markets are frequently assumed to be something else. It is worth being explicit about what this firm does not do.

We are not a broker

We are not paid to introduce. The work is everything between an introduction and a completed project: assessment, structuring, approvals, negotiation and delivery. Where an introduction is genuinely all that is required, a firm like ours is not needed, and we will say so.

We are not a lobbyist

We do not campaign for policy outcomes and we do not offer influence over decisions that belong to public officials. Government relations, as we practise it, means making a proposal properly understood by the people entitled to judge it — through the correct channel, in writing, on the record.

We are not a regulated financial adviser

Fratres Limited is not authorised or regulated by any financial regulator. Nothing published by the firm is an offer of securities, an inducement to invest, or personal investment advice. Where regulated advice is required, we say so and the client appoints a regulated firm.

We do not take custody of client funds

The firm does not hold, receive or transmit client or project money. Capital moves between the parties to a transaction and their banks. Fees are invoiced and paid to the firm for advisory services. Nothing else passes through us.

Our full position on acceptance, refusal, conflicts and financial crime controls is published rather than described. Read the governance framework.