An investor portal is not optional in today’s market; a proprietary portal is now an essential component of every general partner’s (GPs) communication toolset. Over the last several years, there has been a move toward greater transparency in the private equity (PE) industry, and savvy GPs are using investor portals to meet this demand and enable dissemination of important information to their limited partners (LPs). As the financial industry adjusts to a new virtual work-from-home environment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, GPs with an existing investor portal are finding it easier to meet the challenges of engaging with their investors.
Economic uncertainty is also causing LPs to shift away from a somewhat laissez-faire approach to their private equity investments, as they carefully re-evaluate their allocations and exposures across the board. For large asset managers with tight mandates, the relative performance of private equity investments compared to the broader market has also caused PE to become an outsized component of their overall portfolios. This imbalance is causing managers to explore a reduction in their private equity positions, leading to an increase in activity in the secondary markets where buyers are also performing diligent analysis for each of their potential purchases.
The knock-on effect of all this activity is that GPs are seeing a significant uptick in demand for more frequent touchpoints and deeper analysis with respect to the performance of their funds and underlying portfolios. Investor relations teams need to find ways to satisfy this increased demand in the most efficient way possible, and investor portals are generally their tool of choice. GPs can publish financial and performance documents to their portal, making data available to their broad investor base quickly. In addition, GPs can communicate market updates and other announcements to the investor community, so that investors feel more connected and informed.
From an LP’s perspective, portals are a convenient way to retrieve current updates as well as review historical information concerning their GPs. The Intralinks InvestorVision portal, for example, allows investors to easily filter and search through all documents to pinpoint required information quickly without the need to continuously click through multiple file folders. This functionality gives LPs a structured and accessible means of information retrieval that enables them to make the best decisions for their investments and have increased transparency with fund managers.
Investor portals make sense now more than ever. SS&C Intralinks has been enabling GP-to-LP communication for over 20 years and, with the new InvestorVision solution, continues to offer the best-in-class investor portals that enhance information transmission and transparency in investor relationships.
