Capital Returns & Equity Intelligence

An internal model of how companies keep their word.

CREI studies how public-company leadership delivers on the promises it makes to investors — and where that opens a gap between a company's value and its price. That work is being built privately, and nothing is published.

Dormant as to capital  ·  Portland, Oregon
The standing position Dated
·HoldingsNone — no securities, no positions
·Outside capitalNone managed
·InputsPublic data only
·PublicationNone
·BeginsOn the founder's full-time commitment
Set out in full, and dated, in the standstill.

Financial results are the last thing to move.
The decisions come first.

The model

What it concerns.

CREI is building one thing: an internal model. It concerns three questions.

That is the whole of what is described. CREI publishes nothing further — no method, no scoring, no inputs, and no view on any company.

  • Promises keptHow executives at public companies deliver on the promises they make to investors.
  • Value versus priceWhere that produces a difference between a company's value and its price.
  • Decision architectureWhere a company's value could be improved by improving how it decides.
The discipline

Built to be checked against reality.

The model is assembled from public information and held to a fixed method — so that, in time, judgment can be measured rather than asserted.

Nothing is published while the work is built. The commitments below are stated, and dated, in the standstill.

Public data only
Inputs are drawn solely from public information.
Timestamped
Every entry is dated when it is made.
Resolution-dated
Its resolution date is fixed before the outcome is known.
Compared with reality
Each entry is later compared with what actually happened.
Revised
The model is corrected, and kept private.
The standstill

A dated statement of position.

While CREI is dormant, five commitments govern it. They are dated, because the date is the point.

What CREI does not do

Holds no securities; makes no investments
Manages no outside capital
Publishes nothing
Dated · 2026

How CREI conducts itself

Inputs are public data only
Entries timestamped and resolution-dated before the outcome
Cooling-off periods before any position tied to a prior relationship
The book

The Decision Before the Decision

The work of CREI's founder, Andrew V. Vasserman, on decision architecture — the discipline of examining a decision before it is made.

Its premise is that a serious business decision is a hypothesis about reality, and that most large decisions fail not from ignorance but from confidence without structure.

The Decision Before the DecisionA. V. Vasserman
·A shared languageEight core concepts for the senior team
·The anatomy of a decisionTen components behind any major decision
·StructureFive parts — from the investor's lens to judgment that compounds
·Written forLeaders who allocate capital, govern risk, and live with consequences
"The enemy is not ignorance. It is confidence without architecture."

CREI begins when its founder's
full-time commitment to CREI begins.

Until then, the standstill holds in full.