Research Support for a Real Estate-focused Private Equity Fund

A significant portion of the client’s time and resources were allocated to intensive research and analysis activities, which in turn diluted its focus on other critical/high-value tasks
They lacked the bandwidth to meet aggressive deal sourcing/ closing targets while also ensuring robust monitoring of performance of existing portfolio companies
They had to deal with the high cost and lack of continuity associated with engaging large consulting firms on a project basis, which ultimately lowered the fund’s management fees

Acuity Knowledge Partners (Acuity) set up an offshore team for the client
The team took end-to-end ownership of the analysis process, which included
- High-level screening and analysis to identify potential opportunities, company overview, property and loan database, transaction case studies, market/industry overview
- Preliminary, operational, and commercial due diligence, loan and borrower research, property and tenant analysis, trading and transaction comps, and rental benchmarking
- Target-company and property valuation, catchment area analysis, historical financial spreading and debt analysis, sensitivity analysis, and the preparation of investment memorandums
- The preparation of industry dashboards for key sectors, investment portfolio dashboards, and tracking of covenant compliance
We leveraged our research capabilities and hands-on experience with various RE-specific databases to support the client on quick turnaround projects (many of them were live)
The team handled increasing workloads from other client locations, and an additional support team was also set up to reduce time lags between various geographies

Acuity team has delivered over 500 projects across client funds so far
Increased breadth of coverage: The client leveraged our services to broaden the target universe and screen/evaluate more opportunities
Increased depth of analysis: With our support, they were able to undertake in-depth analyses, especially for distressed/special situations
Robust monitoring: The client’s ability to closely and actively monitor the portfolio on an ongoing basis was enhanced
Enhanced visibility: Our team created an integrated structure with maximum visibility for the onshore team
Cost savings and profitability: Our solutions enabled cost savings of ~50% vs the fully loaded cost of in-house resources (include hiring, training, infrastructure, tax, travel, management, etc.)