Wheelhouse Advisors: Best Accounting Firm – Private equity firms in the UK and Europe must brace themselves for significant change as a wave of new regulation is due to be implemented in January 2022 and UK firms understand how to continue marketing their funds across the EU in a post-Brexit world. The implementation of the Investment Firm Prudential Regime (IFPR) in the UK in January 2022 and its EU equivalent, the IFR, later this year will impact all firms with MiFID permissions. “They can expect to see significant changes to their capital requirements and prudential governance arrangements, including a ‘Pillar 2’

Lionpoint: Best Technology Advisory Firm – The changes and uncertainty which have come to light in the past year, coupled with the increasing speed of the private equity industry, have highlighted the need for faster, more reliable data to enable real-time forecasting and portfolio monitoring, accounting fund administration and performance.

SS&C Advent: Best Accounting & Reporting Software – Hedge fund managers actively invest in private equity and launch funds to satisfy investors’ demands for better returns. To succeed, hedge funds need a multi-asset class system with robust private equity capabilities to support their investor pools. “There is a need for more investor reporting across funds – hedge and private equity combined. We have observed this trend developing over the last few years in our private equity technology and fund administration business. On the technology side, we have built out private equity partnership accounting to support our clients,” outlines Daniel Leader, a

CEPRES: Best Data Management Solution – Demand for rigorous and in-depth analysis of complex investment strategies is growing exponentially as more capital is allocated to private markets. In this environment, access to accurate data down to single asset levels is critical to support insightful analysis, and investors with this access can achieve better investment outcomes and possess a distinct advantage.  “Different industries can differ heavily in their risk/return outcomes and various private equity strategies will deliver varying degrees of success,” comments Dr Daniel Schmidt, CEO & Founder at CEPRES. “Only those with access to the right data and investment analytics will

RFA: Best Cloud Services Provider – Digital transformation can create efficiencies within a business, increasing visibility of data and reducing cost. However, it is crucial that any digital transformation is approached correctly, as a poorly executed strategy can lead to significant business disruption.  “An effective digitisation process is built on an effective data strategy. An end-to-end managed data solution is usually the most effective approach for a PE firm,” explains George Ralph, Global Managing Director at RFA. “A data warehouse will separate the layers of PE managers’ data via any public cloud provider; AWS, Azure or Google Cloud. The managers are

AssetMetrix: Best ESG Solution Provider – As the need for transparency persists and private equity managers are pushed to integrate increasingly sophisticated tools into their processes, the importance of delivering high quality data in a timely manner is being thrown into sharper relief. “As limited partners (LPs) and regulators demand greater transparency and insight, fund managers are under pressure to adopt reporting technology to satisfy these demands,” explains Moritz Haarmann, Head of Product Development, AssetMetrix. “The trend for digitisation in private capital has been in action for several years, but it has come into the spotlight even more over the course

iConnections: Best Fund Raising Solution – As travel restrictions extended beyond March 2020, raising assets without face-to-face meetings proved challenging, especially in private markets which are heavily reliant on personal relationships. In this environment, asset owners and investment managers recognised the need to think laterally and search for a virtual platform which understands the bespoke needs of the private capital community.  “Prior to the pandemic, the capital introduction process was largely centred around conferences, which by their very nature tended to be quite regional in their reach,” observes Ron Biscardi, CEO and Co-Founder of iConnections. “They also tended to have a narrower scope,

FIS: Best Portfolio Management Software Provider – As private equity continues to attract more and more capital from existing and new sources like high-net worth individuals, managers must meet the changing investor needs. There has been a rise in asset class cross-over with traditional managers buying private firms or starting closed-end vehicles and private capital firms launching open-ended structures. 

SS&C Intralinks: Best Investor Relations Technology – Requests for more data and transparency are changing the private equity landscape. These demands have become burdensome from the general partners’ (GPs) perspective so the need for efficiency on this front has been pushed to the fore. “Although these demands have been on the rise for the past few years, they increased pretty rapidly over the last year,” comments Bob Petrocchi, senior vice president and co-general manager of SS&C Intralinks. “I think, because we were operating remotely, these requests were compressed in terms of timeframe. We also observed heightened levels of expected responsiveness. In