Solutions
George Ralph, Managing Director of RFA, recently chaired a breakfast briefing on Operational Due Diligence for private equity firms. With a knowledgeable and varied panel he debated the growing importance of being absolutely shipshape and watertight when it comes to investor due diligence around operations and talked about how GDPR will affect everyone and what can be done to make sure firms are not only meeting ODD requirements, but exceeding them too.
The ODD landscape
It has been a record year for private equity funds raised, and the total assets stand now at £2.83 trillion. The hedge fund space is
State Street Corporation has been appointed by HSBC Alternative Investments Limited (HAIL) in Luxembourg to provide a broad range of custody and administration services for its new diversified loan fund.
The appointment represents a new relationship and one where State Street will be the sole provider of several services including, global custody and depositary, fund administration, as well as regulatory reporting services for the EMIR, FATCA and Solvency II.
“Unprecedented changes in regulation, private equity buyout activity and increases in mergers and acquisitions have radically changed the opportunities in both the global loan and direct lending markets,” says David
Ultimus Fund Solutions has acquired Woodfield Fund Administration, a privately-owned private fund administration firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.
Ultimus says that the combination will allow each firm to better leverage technology investments, resources and assets, providing current and prospective clients the opportunity to access a larger range of services from one combined firm with a hallmark of exceptional client service. After the acquisition, the firm will serve over 140 clients with nearly 200 employees, and Ultimus’ assets under administration will grow to more than USD75 billion. Ultimus, headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, will also maintain offices in Chicago, Illinois and Denver,
Centaur Fund Services is opening a new office in Luxembourg which will primarily service private equity (PE) and real estate (RE) funds and related investment vehicles.
Luxembourg provides a favourable legal regime to PE/RE firms, and over the past 20 years, has become a central hub for the industry, continuing to attract an increasing number of firms.
Centaur has agreed to acquire an existing administration firm, Luxembourg Capital Partners, which currently provides a full suite of fund administration services to funds, family offices and corporate vehicles. The transaction is subject to the approval of the Luxembourg regulator, the CSSF.
Finitive, a financial technology platform providing institutional investors with direct access to alternative lending investments, has launched a zero-fee platform.
Finitive, which commenced operations in August 2017, has received commitments for transactions with an aggregate capacity of USD1.3 billion. Several asset managers and banks have committed capital for transactions in the consumer, renewable energy and commercial real estate lending sectors.
“Alternative lending is a global, fast growing, multi-trillion-dollar asset class which remains highly inefficient, as investments require a lengthy and complex due diligence process. The sector is poised for change,” says Jon Barlow (pictured), Finitive’s Executive Chairman and founder. “Finitive’s
Venture capital investor Oxford Capital is teaming up with CoInvestor as it looks to introduce a fully digitised investment process.
CoInvestor provides fund managers and financial advisers with fully integrated software to digitise and enhance the management of alternative asset investments.
Oxford Capital is a fund manager of tax-efficient investments specialising in Venture Capital, Enterprise Investment Scheme and Inheritance Tax investment solutions.
CoInvestor’s solution is designed to enable streamlined management of assets, enhanced risk-management and compliance and strengthened data security.
Sam Plumptre, Chief Executive of CoInvestor, says: “This is an important milestone, not only for us but
Expel, a company that replaces what organisations spend on managed security service providers (MSSPs), announced it has secured USD20 million in Series B funding led by Scale Venture Partners, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm investing in the future of work.
Ariel Tseitlin, a partner at Scale Venture Partners, will join Expel’s board of directors. Scale joins Expel’s existing investors: Battery Ventures, Greycroft, Lightbank, NEA, Paladin Capital Group and Profile Capital Management – all of whom also participated. Including this round, Expel has secured a total of USD27.5 million in funding to date.
“Security is now a board-level concern.
The focal point of institutional investors has changed over time with respect to how operational due diligence (ODD) or the risk assessment of non-investment functions is applied to private equity and real estate GP’s and Investment managers.
Although a well-established process in hedge fund investing, it is still a relatively new discipline in the closed-ended space. Back in the 1990s, the shock waves that emanated from the implosion of Long Term Capital Management (LTCM) sent hedge fund investors into a tailspin.
Terrified that if it could happen to LTCM then it could happen to anyone, institutions trained their sights on
Vistra, a provider of international incorporations, trust, fiduciary, private office, and fund administration services, has expanded into the Canadian market with the opening of an office in Toronto.
The expansion into Canada comes about at the same time Vistra’s Alternative Investments division was awarded a major fund administration mandate from a leading Private Equity firm headquartered in Toronto.
Commenting on the opening of Vistra’s Toronto office, Onno Bouwmeister, Group Managing Director, Alternative Investments at Vistra, says: “This is a huge milestone for all of us at Vistra and I am incredibly proud of the team from across the globe that
By George Ralph, RFA – As many firms in the alternative investment sector, and certainly many of our clients, look for new ways to improve investment strategies and drive efficiencies in their businesses, against a backdrop of strict regulations and compliance requirements, investment in technology and innovation continues to rise.
Whilst automation of workflows and business processes are not new concepts, the introduction of robotic process automation (RPA) is fairly new and is gathering rapid pace in the media.
RPA utilises software bots to automate routine and repetitive tasks to increase business productivity, challenging how businesses operate. It sounds incredibly
Events
12 November, 2026 – 8:00 am
12 November, 2026 – 5:00 pm
