Client type
Investment bank
Key stakeholders
Fund Accounting
Location
United States
Project outline
- A New York-based investment management firm were experiencing increased deficiencies with their Excel-based performance attribution processes
- This approach was not scalable, risking the firm’s ability to manage growth effectively
- StructureIt was engaged to introduce a scalable and sustainable solution
The Challenge
Our client, a New York based investment management firm, manages debt opportunity funds across public CMBS securities and private CRE loans. The performance of these funds was being tracked and managed via a complex, manual, Excel-based calculation of the internal rate of return (IRR) and equity multiple (EM). As the growth of the company, and by association the data within the business, has scaled, the fund accounting team was running into the following key challenges:
- Decentralized data spread across multiple systems
- Highly manual processes as data is transferred and duplicated across systems and spreadsheets
- Over-reliance on Excel, as the large spreadsheet-based calculations of IRR and EM were taking an increasingly longer time to produce and were often unable to easily finish the calculations
Our client was concerned that the spreadsheets were not scalable for continued company growth.
How StructureIt helped
With expertise in helping organizations to scale using technology, StructureIt focused on reducing this reliance on Excel by working with our client to understand:
- What variables and factors were driving the calculations
- Where the data required for the calculations was stored
- How could the storing of the data and the associated processes be simplified
With these questions answered, StructureIt has produced an elegant software solution which:
- Loads and consolidates all transaction information from multiple data sources into a single datastore
- Provides a client-specific view of all transaction information such as holdings and investment size and the corresponding performance metrics, such as Investment to Date IRR and EM calculations alongside the same metrics for the previous quarter and hedged IRR versus unhedged IRR.
- Includes a summary dashboard where users can slice and dice their investment data according to their own preference, such as by fund, investment type or property type.
The Results
The client has immediately recognized the following benefits:
- Performance calculations that are quick and simple to produce at scale with flexibility to offer investor-specific views
- Improved data integrity from automated data feeds and centralized data
- Scalable technology which supports the growth of their business at no additional overhead
The fund accounting team runs all the uploads and can quickly produce the critical performance metrics required in their quarterly portfolio reports. StructureIt continues to work with the client to simplify further and modernize its technical infrastructure to facilitate accelerated growth.
Collaboration, on your terms
We collaborate with you to develop personalized software solutions that contribute to your business growth in the capital markets
