AFTAs 2014: Best IT Integration Initiative—Blackstone
Strategic Partners, as it is known, specializes in the niche business of private equity secondary investments and related fund solutions. It has helped institutional investors and other clients manage their illiquid investments by directly buying limited partner (LP) stakes in over 1,800 transactions since 2000, backed by capital commitments in excess of $16 billion.
However, when the firm was sold to Blackstone last year, its software applications had been allowed to become too many and drift, making it difficult to both use and maintain the platform. Meanwhile, a stipulation of the deal was that Strategic Partners would need to move to Blackstone’s IT estate within one year of the acquisition, making this not only a technical challenge for the BX Workflows team, but one they were on the clock to solve as well. The resulting process was a frantic but coolly delivered integration that streamlined Strategic Partners apps into a unified, easily configurable but high-performing interface. Blackstone began the project by assessing Strategic Partners’ current software providers, and made the hard choice to let them go, opting instead for a more customizable solution built in-house—something many firms would shy away from in today’s environment.
The outcome, delivered a month early in July 2014, is a system that tags incoming documents with metadata, before collecting data from financial statements into a central database for analytics and reporting, reconciling capital account statements from underlying investments, and, most importantly, processing cash notices from underlying funds seamlessly within Blackstone’s enterprise treasury management system. Each step of the workflow was built to be auditable at a granular level, and also accounts for the complex business approval processes associated with secondaries investment.
As for the judges’ verdict, the final decision on the project was far simpler: In 2014, it was second to none.
Blackstone taking home the prize in 2014 is a minor coup, given the private equity giant’s comparatively lean technology organization. Yet this year’s winning project—a major workflow transformation undertaken with the acquisition of Strategic Partners Fund Solutions from Credit Suisse in 2013—is a deserving victor at any size.
Only users who have a paid subscription or are part of a corporate subscription are able to print or copy content.
To access these options, along with all other subscription benefits, please contact info@waterstechnology.com or view our subscription options here: http://subscriptions.waterstechnology.com/subscribe
You are currently unable to print this content. Please contact info@waterstechnology.com to find out more.
You are currently unable to copy this content. Please contact info@waterstechnology.com to find out more.
Copyright Infopro Digital Limited. All rights reserved.
You may share this content using our article tools. Printing this content is for the sole use of the Authorised User (named subscriber), as outlined in our terms and conditions - https://www.infopro-insight.com/terms-conditions/insight-subscriptions/
If you would like to purchase additional rights please email info@waterstechnology.com
Copyright Infopro Digital Limited. All rights reserved.
You may share this content using our article tools. Copying this content is for the sole use of the Authorised User (named subscriber), as outlined in our terms and conditions - https://www.infopro-insight.com/terms-conditions/insight-subscriptions/
If you would like to purchase additional rights please email info@waterstechnology.com
More on Awards & Rankings
Witad Awards 2024: EDM professional of the year—Neslihan Yegul, S&P Global Market Intelligence
Neslihan Yegul, vice president, head of EDM and thinkFolio at S&P Global Market Intelligence, wins EDM professional of the year in the 2024 Women in Technology and Data Awards.
Witad Awards 2024: Technology innovator of the year (end-user)—Laura Hamilton, Bank of America
Laura Hamilton, global head of corporate treasury, credit risk, climate risk, and financial forecasting technology at Bank of America, wins technology innovator of the year (end-user) in the 2024 Women in Technology and Data Awards.
Witad Awards 2024: Vendor professional of the year (data and operations)—Joanna Davies, OSTTRA
Joanna Davies, head of trade processing at OSTTRA, wins vendor professional of the year (data and operations) in the 2024 Women in Technology and Data Awards.
Sell-Side Technology Awards 2024: Best sell-side front-office platform—Bloomberg
Product: Bloomberg TOMS
Most read
- Deutsche Börse democratizes data with Marketplace offering
- Sell-Side Technology Awards 2024: All the winners
- Chris Edmonds takes the reins at ICE Fixed Income and Data Services