UK national law firm Foot Anstey has launched a data-led governance reporting information portal for the private equity investors and their portfolio companies called Ingenuity for Private Equity – GRIP.
GRIP allows PE houses and their portfolio companies to share information with one another, including monthly financial information, plus the monitoring of risk and compliance metrics. It provides the PE house and portfolio companies with a tailored report on their business, and allows the PE house to monitor trends across its portfolio and to identify areas of most impact.
The aim is to achieve compliance throughout the investment cycle in order that businesses are exit-ready.
The system allows the user to standardise policies and procedures across their entire portfolio, providing clarity and transparency for portfolio companies.
The firm says it already has two ‘significant mid-market private equity houses’ using the service.
Foot Anstey is developing an ESG module to add on to its GRIP product that will enable users to track their portfolio’s ESG impact. Through the use of the personalised portal, users will be able to choose the metrics they want to monitor and show investors where and how they are taking action in a world, which is increasingly asking organisations how they’re making a positive difference to local and global communities.
Matt Stoate, head of corporate and private equity, commented: “We have worked in collaboration with private equity to develop this bespoke, technology-enabled, risk and compliance offering across their portfolio businesses.
“We can also design functionality within GRIP to integrate it with a PE house’s own systems; this enables each portfolio company to directly upload its financial data, supporting the financial analysis. We see a growing interest in ESG and how it is monitored, and impacts are made, across a portfolio – this product can lead the way on that.”
GRIP is part of the Ingenuity platform launched by Foot Anstey in 2021, which takes a design thinking approach to coming up with new, tech-led client solutions.
Stoate added: “The development of GRIP has enabled us to recruit new members to our corporate team to service the platform and our GRIP clients, as well as work in unison with dedicated members of Foot Anstey’s digital team to manage and develop GRIP.”
To find out more about GRIP see: https://www.footanstey.com/ingenuity/private-equity/
See also:
UK top 100 law firm Foot Anstey launches ‘Ingenuity’ to turn client problem solving on its head