Our Work

Case Study: IPES

International Private Equity Services Limited (IPES) are the largest independent firm of Private Equity Fund Administrators in Guernsey. They administer funds in excess of EUR40 billion and maintain their competitive edge and market dominance through innovative use of the Internet to deliver exceptional customer service. We developed a comprehensive investor reporting service that delivers a clear competitive edge.

The structure of a private equity fund can be relatively complex with funds being raised by specialist Banks and Venture Capitalists etc who tend to split each fund into Limited Partnerships (LPs) and then investors (either as individuals or as consortiums) buy into one or more LPs. What can make the relationship complex is that individuals can be both investors and clients and they can also be in multiple LPs and multiple funds. Indeed, because IPES deal with so many funds it is not unusual for an individual to be involved with several of their clients.

Historically Fund Administrators have sent investor and client communications via the post or Fax. IPES recognised that for the customer (and the planet) this approach was not competitive; it meant lots of paper, customer service delays, lost documentation and rigid support hours. After reviewing the software market for online investor reporting solutions they quickly came to the conclusion that a custom solution was required to deliver their unique service features.

We were commissioned to develop a web application to securely distribute documents to clients and their investors online. IPES chose us because of our experience in developing secure web applications with an emphasis on customer experience.

After conducting comprehensive requirements analysis we presented several options to IPES, and arrived at a solution that combined the flexibility of a web-based application with the familiarity of their business model.

The web application developed provides several key service features:

• Adding existing clients to the service is quick, simple, and the service provides branding options to accommodate client requirements
• Users can access documents anywhere at any time, giving them more confidence in their investments
• Users can access contact details for fund managers and investors, increasing communication where it may have been minimal before

Several factors made the development of LP-Services unique, most notably the focus on transferring IPES’s business model and the structure of their funds to a web-based application. By analysing their business processes through interviews with IPES and the literature they gave us, we were able to produce a logical model of their business. The resulting documentation formed part of our Functional Specification.

IPES named the service LP-Services.info and opted to have a phased rollout where major functional milestones would be deployed over 18 months. Since the launch we continue to work on enhancing the service, adding new features like WebDav and an API, increasing integration with their internal administrative systems and improving existing features.

Feedback on the service to date has been excellent, it’s seen as delivering a clear strategic advantage to IPES in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Many of the new features being implemented are suggested by clients and their investors’ experience of the service along with IPES’s staff recommendations, ensuring that the customer experience is firmly related to the IPES unique service offering and high levels of personalisation.

“Having recognised the necessity for web-enabled reporting to clients and investors and investigating third party solutions we quickly came to the conclusion that we would need to find a professional technical partner to develop a custom solution for online service delivery, which would retain our control over design and hosting. We're pleased to say that Aardvark Media fulfilled the brief, they interpreted our requirements and developed a solution that gives us a clear competitive edge in the marketplace.”
Project Director - International Private Equity Services Ltd

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