With a total of over 8,000 deals worth a combined US$2.1 trillion, global private equity activity in 2021 more than doubled the previous year's US$1 trillion valuation. This eye-watering increase is the result of an impressive 60% growth year-on-year deal volume posted.

Private equity deals often involve many stakeholders, an abundance of due diligence and unique process streams for each of the players involved in a deal. To say there are a lot of moving parts in your average PE deal is quite an understatement.

While the financial rewards can be significant, effectively managing, organizing and ensuring the security of such potentially large amounts of information is equally substantive.

Managing stakeholder expectations and ensuring seamless continuity while all the time guaranteeing that highly confidential financial information is secure can present incredible challenges to even the most experienced PE professional.

Certainly, with so many moving parts and so many people and organizations involved, relying on disconnected and (not entirely secure) email chains for accessing critical and highly sensitive investment and investor data is less than ideal... and far from the professional experience investors demand.

A client portal to bring order to chaos.

With so much at stake it is, quite frankly, no wonder that an increasing number of private equity firms are turning to client portals such as Clinked.

Of all the challenges facing PE firms, getting the administration of a deal right, is the one challenge that while critical, need not be an obstacle to deal success.

Clinked is the custom client portal of choice for progressive private equity firms. Here's why.

First and foremost, the Clinked platform is incredibly intuitive - and for good reason. The reality is that no business wants to adopt a new platform to make their workflow more efficient and then have to go through weeks of training just to be able to use it. With Clinked, from the first time you access the platform, you're a pro on it. It's designed to feel familiar. From the first interaction, good software should feel, natural.

Branding your client portal

Another great benefit of a 'custom' client portal, is that being entirely customisable from the domain in the browser navigation through to the client login page, colour scheme, logo use and everything in-between, means that it is unequivocally 'your' client portal. It represents your brand in the most compelling way and shows quite clearly, how much you value your clients in providing a facility that supports efficiency and effective communication between all parties.

Security Is Essential For Private Equity Firms And Clients

Next, security. You shouldn't settle for anything less than bank grade security. Your data and your clients' information is of critical importance. Cutting corners on security is a very big no-no. Clinked provides all clients with impenetrable 256 bit encryption - just like your bank - this level of security is increasingly important and quite frankly, what your clients will demand.

Email is not your friend

Now let's talk about email. A Harvard Business Review article laments the inefficiency of email within professional organizations, describing 'the unstructured workflow it engenders' as 'disastrous'. Who can argue with that perspective?

Emails are incredibly inefficient. Hands up who's lost an email in their inbox, sent folder or drafts, had a critical message end up inexplicably in their spam folder or simply 'missed' something that was time critical. We've all been there. But there is another way - a better way.

The bottom line

A client portal like Clinked allows for files, documentation and digital assets to be easily stored in client or project folders. All searchable, with clear version control and audit trail functionality... not to mention that with user permissions you're able to have absolute control over everything.

And as far as communicating with clients, colleagues or third parties, imagine if you had your own branded chat function, or discussion board, or message broadcast platform. This is truly next level client communication.

These are the tools that make private equity firms supremely efficient and they're all available on the Clinked custom client portal.

Hopefully this overview has provided some insight into some of the possibilities available in better managing clients' work, assets, reports and communications.

Talk to the team at Clinked and find out how we can help take your client management efficiency to the next level.