To advance in their careers, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women in investment management are struggling to break through the “bamboo glass ceiling,” according to the latest report that Backstop co-authored with the Association of Asian American Investment Managers.

Key findings from the study included:

- 80% of AAPI women say the bamboo ceiling effect is real.
- 65% of AAPI women disagree or strongly disagree that opportunities for advancement are equitable regardless of race or gender.
- 57% of AAPI women said the bamboo ceiling has affected their career.

To learn how workplaces can level the playing field — and how AAPI women can better advocate for themselves — download the study.

Topics: White Paper, Ungated

 

Topics: Webinar, Hedge Funds

The average alternative investment manager, according to our new survey of investor relations and business development professionals, works 52 hours each week. To anybody in this high-pressure, ever changing industry, those long hours are likely no surprise. But, as investor relations and business development professionals push beyond the limits of traditional 9-to-5 workdays, they may also want to ensure that they’re spending their hours on the right things.

And that’s what our survey of more than 100 BD and IR professionals set out to answer: Do BD/IR professionals believe they are using their hours productively on the tasks they deem to be the most valuable, or are they squandering an inordinate amount of time on less strategic work?

Our goal with this survey was to understand how much time BD/IR professionals are spending on core business development and investor relations tasks versus other non-core tasks to identify opportunities for improvement in their day-to-day working lives. In other words, are they making time work for them or against them, and is there room for improvement?

Topics: E-Book/Report, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Private Equity/VC

Topics: video

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s annual due diligence questionnaire process was a time consuming, cumbersome task, requiring more than 80 hours of time to ensure surveys were returned and converted into PDFs for storage.

Topics: Case Study, Endowments & Foundations, Customer Success Stories

Ironwood Capital Management, an alternative investment manager focused on constructing multi-manager hedge fund portfolios, was relying on multiple Excel spreadsheets to track capital in/out flows. The spreadsheets required error prone manual data entry, and it was almost impossible to track trends at a firm-wide level. Ironwood needed to bolster its capital in/out flow processes with a digital approach that allowed for real-time updates and the ability to better monitor activity across its products and the firm.

Ironwood turned to Backstop to centralize its data and build a responsive and relational database for improved capital in/out reporting.

Topics: Case Study, Hedge Funds, Fund of Funds, Head of Investor Relations, Chief Operating Officer, Operations Team, Business Development/IR Team, Customer Success Stories

If you lead an Accounting team for an allocator or direct investor today, you are faced with multiple challenges. These challenges include managing hundreds or even thousands of time-consuming and time-sensitive tasks daily, establishing a single source of truth for decision-making, and building an accurate and timely accounting view of your multi-tiered, multi-asset structure.

Topics: Solution Brief, Real Estate, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds, Private Equity/VC

You want to integrate mission-critical systems, applications, or data sets with Backstop, and you have the in-house development team with the bandwidth and resources to build and maintain it. Fantastic — that’s a luxury most of our clients don’t have!

Topics: Solution Brief, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds, Private Equity/VC

As a Backstop Solutions Group client, your firm already uses Backstop to manage client relationships, investor servicing, investor reporting, and other functions. In similar fashion, Backstop can help the deal team review and assess investment opportunities with speed and accuracy.

Backstop’s agile platform enables you to combine data, document, reporting, and pipeline management capabilities to support deal management. For example, you can use Backstop to:

- Track all activities and requests related to a deal through an intuitive dashboard
- Fast-track transactions and manage the deal pipeline from one location
- Automate and streamline workflows to maximize productivity
- Keep your team well-informed via improved communication capabilities

Topics: Solution Brief, Real Estate, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Private Equity/VC

As an Allocator, your ability to safeguard the assets in your portfolio depends heavily on the accuracy of the custodial data you have available. If a fund manager, for instance, provides outdated balance or performance data, it gives you an incorrect view of the status of your assets. Your team needs access to real-time custodial data to reconcile custodians’ reported returns, drive investment insight, and ensure investments are on track. However, processing custodial data is cumbersome, time-consuming, and error-prone if it must be performed manually across disparate systems.

Topics: Solution Brief, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

What did Backstop users get in 2021?

Topics: Other

 

Topics: Webinar

Georgia Tech Foundation’s staff members were spending too much time collecting and filing documents related to the 200 funds they manage. Passwords to portals were scattered and no single person was responsible for inputting the information into a shared drive. They needed to streamline their due diligence process. And, as part
of a department initiative to become more tech-enabled, they were focused on doing it digitally.

With Backstop IntellX, Georgia Tech Foundation automated due diligence and document collection. The artificial intelligence-enabled solution receives and automatically classifies data directly from managers and provides a one-stop shop for all team members to find the information they need.

Topics: Case Study, Endowments & Foundations, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Head of Asset Class, Customer Success Stories

 

Topics: Webinar

At Backstop, we know ESG is a hot topic because we’ve been approached by both allocators and managers about it. Allocators want to know what other allocators are doing to track ESG. And managers are wondering which ESG metrics allocators are collecting — everything from carbon emissions and energy efficiency to supply chain resilience and business ethics—and how they’re actually gathering it.

Topics: E-Book/Report

Using Backstop to Track and Manage Complex Alternative Strategies

Topics: Case Study, Fund of Funds, Head of Investor Relations, Head of Business Development, Business Development/IR Team, Analyst, Customer Success Stories

Horsley Bridge is based in San Francisco, California, and has satellite offices located around the world. Through Backstop’s suite of CRM solutions, Horsley Bridge is now well equipped to deliver even greater value to their clients and optimize their operational efficiencies. Mr. Roller concluded, “We’ve always been on the leading edge in terms of investing in systems to get the best possible output. Backstop will help us to achieve our goals as an investment firm, both through their technology solutions and as a trusted partner.”

Topics: Case Study, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds, Head of Investor Relations, Head of Business Development, Business Development/IR Team, Chief Information Officer, Customer Success Stories

Beyond the CRM: How a Global Alternative Asset Management Firm Leverages Backstop for Enterprise-Wide Digital Transformation

CHALLENGE:

MCP needed to replace its rudimentary CRM with a comprehensive system that unified organizational silos and enabled effective collaboration across its various distributed teams.

SOLUTION:

Backstop enabled teams to easily share and collaborate, manage version control, systematize due diligence, and leverage organizational data for actionable insights.

Topics: Case Study, Fund of Funds, Investment Team, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Operations Team, Customer Success Stories

Using Backstop to Manage Four Multi-Billion University Endowments and Investment Pools

CHALLENGE:

DUMAC, the investment management arm of Duke University, is faced with the challenges associated with managing some $19 billion across four endowments and investment pools

SOLUTION:

DUMAC first took advantage of Backstop Solution’s Hedge Fund Liquidity package and then brought on other modules as Backstop became central to the management process.

Topics: Case Study, Endowments & Foundations, Investment Team, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Head of Asset Class, Operations Team, Customer Success Stories

REAL ASSETS INVESTING, REAL PRODUCTIVITY GAINS

CHALLENGE:

Help rapidly growing real assets investment firm professionalize and automate data collection and distribution.

SOLUTION:

Backstop was initially brought in to satisfy GTIS’ data management; the company’s use of the system has expanded greatly over the years including extensive use of Portal, Backstop’s web-based reporting platform.

Topics: Case Study, Real Estate, Head of Investor Relations, Business Development/IR Team, Customer Success Stories

Leveraging the Right Technology to Build a Lasting Legacy

CHALLENGE:

The Hillman Company is one of the most successful family offices in the nation. The senior team’s desire was to leave behind a legacy that would live on even after they retired. This meant that the firm required a purpose-built system that would give their investment team a holistic view of investor relationships, including performance, calculations, and interactions. Salesforce just wasn’t cutting it anymore.

SOLUTION:

Backstop Solutions provides The Hillman Company with a research and portfolio management solution tailored to the requirements of family offices. 

Topics: Case Study, Family Offices, Investment Team, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Operations Team, Customer Success Stories

Helping an organization that’s critically important to Texans live up to its institutional aspirations

Topics: Case Study, Pensions / Institutions, Investment Team, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Head of Asset Class, Operations Team, Customer Success Stories

Compliance in the institutional investment space can no longer be treated as a local issue. New regulations mean that firms have to take a global approach to their regulatory compliance.

Optima Partners has established itself as a market leader in the industry by providing comprehensive, cutting-edge regulatory compliance support both domestically and globally. Backstop Solutions Group plays a key role in enabling Optima to deliver ever more responsive, proactive, and tailored compliance solutions on a global scale.

Joshua Mika is a Chicago-based Partner and Head of the Midwest Region, at Optima and a regulatory compliance veteran with twenty years of experience in the financial services industry. He shines the spotlight on three main areas where Optima’s partnership with Backstop generates dramatic value: configurability, auditing, and tracking.

Read the success story to learn more!

Topics: Case Study, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Chief Compliance Officer, Head of Investor Relations, Head of Business Development, Business Development/IR Team, Customer Success Stories

Backstop Integrator empowers you to connect your diverse systems and applications with the Backstop platform, breaking down silos so data can flow freely within your organization.

Topics: Solution Brief, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Private Equity/VC

Backstop Integrator empowers you to connect your diverse systems and applications with the Backstop platform, breaking down silos so data can flow freely within your organization.

Topics: Solution Brief, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Last year as COVID was raging across the country, Backstop organized a panel of allocators to discuss effective versus deficient client servicing they were receiving from external hedge fund managers. This year, Backstop decided to take an even deeper dive into this topic, tracking the experience of leading US and European allocators with respect to client servicing. The purpose? To gain a more in-depth understanding of what’s working, where improvement is needed, the impact of the pandemic, and where hedge fund client servicing may be heading.

Topics: E-Book/Report, Hedge Funds

The 2021 hedge fund survey published in June, which ranked the 50 top-performing funds over the trailing five years through 2020, found as a group they continued to outperform their peers and kept pace with the market during the first quarter.

Topics: Hedge Funds

To replace its mishmash of systems and processes, Turim MFO needed a centralized system that let every member of its growing team store and track conversations, notes, documents, emails and other information about investments and companies in one platform.

Topics: Case Study, Family Offices, Investment Team, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Operations Team, Customer Success Stories

As a global investment consultant with over $215 billion in assets under management, a wide range of clients, and a recent acquisition of another major consulting organization, Fiducient Advisors needed a technology platform that was, “flexible, intelligent and forward thinking.”

Brad Long, Fiducient research director and partner, found a solution in Backstop’s Multi-Asset Class RMS that provides his team with fast and easy data access, along with other key benefits that include:

• Consolidation of qualitative and quantitative data
• Every asset class bundled on the same system
• Easy access to information to answer client and in-house queries
• Modular research reports tailored to fit every reader’s needs

Download the client success story to learn more.

Topics: Case Study, Consultants/ OCIOs, Head of Investor Relations, Head of Business Development, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Head of Asset Class, Customer Success Stories

Hedge Fund Investing During the Time of Covid-19: Part II

 

Backstop Solutions is proud to host renowned alternative investment survey writer Eric Uhlfelder’s 18th annual survey of 50 top-performing hedge funds. 

Eric's latest survey reaffirms many of the same findings he reported in previous annual surveys commissioned by The Financial Times, Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, and last year by SALT. 

Topics: E-Book/Report, Featured, Hedge Funds

 

What should be expected from investors in a post-COVID world? Are allocator pipelines drying up in a virtual environment? In light of the new age of working, capital raising is proving to be even more challenging than ever before with ODD at its core. 

Topics: Other, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds, Head of Investor Relations, Head of Business Development, Chief Operating Officer, Operations Team, Business Development/IR Team, Chief Information Officer, Chief Technology Officer

Manual processes and human error are often the root causes of the common mistakes that fund administrators make.

Topics: E-Book/Report, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Accounting Team, Chief Operating Officer, Operations Team, Fund Administrator

With data and documents all in one place and information presented in context, Backstop Solutions provided Pragma with a turnkey tool that bolstered the investment team’s productivity and allowed them to focus on finding new and better ideas for growth.

Backstop delivered these benefits:

• Easy access to data
• Efficient data management system, allowing more time for new idea generation
• Ability to quickly interface with third parties
• Consistency across the platform for staff and clients

Download the success story to learn more.

Topics: Case Study, Family Offices, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Head of Asset Class, Customer Success Stories

Your blog post content here…https://www.backstopsolutions.com/resources/cios-dont-care-about-efficiency-but-heres-why-they-should

Topics: White Paper

 

Topics: Other, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds, Investment Team, Chief Investment Officer

An audacious, imperfect, and comprehensive attempt to answer, “What are the benefits of investment office modernization projects?”

As an institutional investor, you have an eye for ROI – not just for the investments you manage, but for how you operate your office. Consequently, the generic assertion that “investment office modernization is beneficial” is not enough. You want to know exactly what those benefits are and how they translate into ROI in terms of efficiency, time, and money.

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds, Investment Team, Chief Investment Officer, Chief Operating Officer, Head of Asset Class, Operations Team, Research Management, Portfolio Management

The Backstop Productivity Suite provides the full functionality needed for a venture capital investment firm, from accounting to deal management to investor relations. These solutions include:

Topics: Solution Brief, Private Equity / Venture Capital

The Backstop Productivity Suite provides the flexibility while leveraging multiple structured data points to drive optimized business decisions for real estate. Benefits of these solutions include:

Topics: Solution Brief, Real Estate

Endowments and foundations face many unique challenges. Successfully managing large-scale multi-asset class portfolios over long horizons is difficult enough. On top of this, many investment offices supporting endowments and foundations need to report to multiple constituents, operate under tight budget constraints, and manage with an understaffed team. To do their jobs well, investment and operations team must aggregate data from multiple sources, representing various lag time and levels of depth. Their monitoring requirements include accurately measuring the risks associated with managers pursuing varied and complex strategies. Learn more about how Backstop can help investment and operations teams for endowments and foundations gain greater focus, visibility, and clarity through productivity-enhancing software solutions.

Topics: Solution Brief, Endowments & Foundations

Backstop Solutions, an award-winning data and technology provider, delivers the infrastructure and investment platform family office CIOs need to achieve operational excellence and meet long-term objectives. By providing a central repository for all organizational, process, and investment data, Backstop supplies complete transparency and visibility anywhere and anytime, and ensures the continuity of institutional knowledge.

Topics: Solution Brief, Family Offices

Backstop's leading-edge, cloud-based software delivers operational efficiency for funds of funds coupled with the agility needed to meet competitive market demands. Benefits include:

Topics: Solution Brief, Fund of Funds

BACKSTOP'S PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTIONS FOR HEDGE FUNDS

Today’s alternative investment industry faces numerous challenges pressuring Hedge Funds to differentiate themselves and prove their value in a highly competitive landscape.

Topics: Solution Brief, Hedge Funds

The Backstop Productivity Suite provides the flexibility necessary to support multiple investment methodologies, while leveraging multiple structured data points to drive optimized business decisions for private equity and venture capital. These solutions include:

Topics: Solution Brief, Private Equity / Venture Capital

PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTIONS FOR INSTITUTIONS

As we talk to chief investment officers and their teams, whether in pensions, banks, insurance companies, endowments or foundations, not only is the amount of work increasing, but the amount of data and information they deal with continues to exponentially grow. Portfolios continue to grow larger and more complex in lockstep with the number of available instruments.

Topics: Solution Brief, Pensions / Institutions

PRODUCTIVITY SOLUTIONS FOR PENSION INVESTMENT AND OPERATIONS TEAMS

Backstop Solutions has purpose-built a suite of productivity solutions for both public and corporate plan sponsors.  Read our solution brief to understand how defined benefit investors use Backstop Solutions software to achieve greater agility and make the most of their minutes, enabling them to ultimately make better investment decisions and fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities to their members.

Topics: Solution Brief, Pensions / Institutions

TAILORED SOLUTIONS FOR CONSULTANTS, ADVISORS, & OCIO'S

This solution brief details how Backstop's award-winning suite of productivity solutions benefits consultants, advisors, and OCIOs. Download this brief to understand why 4 out of the top 5 investment consultants work with Backstop Solutions.

Topics: Solution Brief, Consultants/ OCIOs

 

Topics: Webinar, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Consultants/ OCIOs, Fund of Funds

 

Topics: Other, Hedge Funds

Establishing a clear internal compliance program is key for fund managers that now have to register with the SEC, according to a new white paper published by Backstop Solutions Group, a leading software provider for the alternative asset industry...

Topics: Other

 

Recently, a panel of experts joined Michael Neuman, Backstop’s VP of Information Security, for a roundtable discussion on how COVID-19 is impacting business.

Topics: Webinar, Pensions / Institutions, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations

 

E-BOOK |2019: A YEAR IN REVIEW

A YEAR OF INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Topics: Other

 

Topics: E-Book/Report, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

2020 INSTITUTIONAL INVESTOR PRODUCTIVITY REPORT

Long before the COVID-19 pandemic upended life as we know it, institutional investing was already a demanding field that attracted highly educated professionals to strategically allocate assets and deliver superior risk-adjusted returns for their members, annuitants, employees or organizations.

Topics: E-Book/Report, Featured, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Establishing a clear internal compliance program is key for fund managers that now have to register with the SEC, according to a new white paper published by Backstop Solutions Group, a leading software provider for the alternative asset industry...

Topics: Other, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Establishing a clear internal compliance program is key for fund managers that now have to register with the SEC, according to a new white paper published by Backstop Solutions Group, a leading software provider for the alternative asset industry...

Topics: Other, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Establishing a clear internal compliance program is key for fund managers that now have to register with the SEC, according to a new white paper published by Backstop Solutions Group, a leading software provider for the alternative asset industry...

Topics: Other, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Learn how Backstop helped Rivulet Capital save time and create effective communication between internal teams and investors.

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Learn how Backstop helped Rivulet Capital save time and create effective communication between internal teams and investors.

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds

Win rates. Pipeline status. Product demand. Real-time data about all of these matters and more is essential if your business development team is to consistently identify, nurture, and close the best opportunities. Download the white paper “ The 10 Questions Every Head of BD Needs Answers to Pronto” to hone in on the critical information you need to deliver on your capital-raising mandate.

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds

Learn how Backstop helped Rivulet Capital save time and create effective communication between internal teams and investors.

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Learn how Backstop helped Rivulet Capital save time and create effective communication between internal teams and investors.

Topics: White Paper

 

Topics: Other, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

 

Institutional investors are spending 30 percent of their time on tasks that do not add value to the investment process, including searching for documents on shared drives, and typing up handwritten notes from meetings.

Topics: Other, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

CHALLENGE:
Given that the Austin Housing Conservancy Fund (AHC) is a first-of-its-kind social impact, open ended, private equity fund with an important ambitious and highly visible mission, its non-profit sponsor, Affordable Central Texas (ACT), felt an added burden to demonstrate its competency as an investment management organization.

Topics: Case Study, Real Estate, Head of Investor Relations, Business Development/IR Team, Customer Success Stories

Topics: video, Fund of Funds

Topics: video

Topics: video

Topics: video

Topics: video, Family Offices

Backstop's VP of Product & Market Strategy Robert Goldbaum examines the drivers and challenges of performing operational due diligence, and how to convert your results into actionable intelligence.

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

DOWNLOAD OUR WHITE PAPER TO LEARN:

• Why agility and operational excellence are important?
• What does operational excellence look like in an alternative investment firm?
• Why operational excellence is so difficult to achieve in alternative investment firms?
• How to get closer to operational excellence
• 3 steps towards operational excellence that every investment firm can begin taking today

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds

DOWNLOAD OUR WHITE PAPER TO LEARN:

• The changes taking place in the PE industry today
• What your investors are looking for in communications about their investments
• How to respond to these increasing market pressures with agility

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Private Equity / Venture Capital

DOWNLOAD OUR WHITE PAPER TO LEARN:

• What savvy asset owners look for when evaluating managers (it's more than outsized returns)
• Reasons why managers may not get funded or may receive full redemption notice (other than performance)
• Why performance isn't everything to an allocator

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds

DOWNLOAD OUR WHITE PAPER TO LEARN:

• Why some alternative investment IT professionals still resist the cloud
• How to overcome their objections to the cloud, especially as related to issues of security and compliance
• How to decide whether cloud or on-premises is best for your alternative investment firm 

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds

DOWNLOAD OUR WHITE PAPER TO LEARN:

• The 4 most common issues raised by alternative investment executives when it comes to the cloud vs. on-premises decision.
• The benefits of cloud-based vs. on-premises solutions.
• How to determine which path is best for your alternative investment firm.

Topics: White Paper, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds

When meeting with prospects and investors, alternative investment managers frequently market themselves as having a repeatable, predictable, and sustainable investment process that generates superior returns and performance. But how often do those alternative investment firms apply repeatable, predictable, and sustainable processes towards their capital raising and retention efforts, when these efforts are the lifeblood of their business?

Download our white paper to learn the 4 elements of a repeatable, predictable, and sustainable capital raising and retention machine for alternative investment firms. 

Topics: White Paper, Hedge Funds

Instead of flowing freely across an organization, data is restricted within silos. This results in vital facts being buried and important connections being missed.

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

The growing popularity of PE investing means every institutional operations team must develop expertise in benchmarking Private Equity Investments. Our new white paper discusses the issues in depth, explaining:

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

THE FAMILY OFFICE IS INCREASINGLY COMPLEX. DO YOU HAVE THE RIGHT SOLUTIONS IN PLACE?

The family office has evolved. Most now involve multiple entities, intricate layers, and byzantine ownership structures. This new normal requires management solutions that ensure clarity and accuracy across all stakeholders. Our recently released white paper examines the unique challenges posed by the family office today, discussing: 

Topics: White Paper, Family Offices

Many institutional investors are failing to reap full value from the vast trove of internal and external data now available to inform their investment strategies and decisions.

Topics: Webinar, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Data comes in various formats, with various lag times, at various levels of depth. Sometimes, it sits outside of your four walls. Sometimes, it sits inside your four walls, but is siloed. And all the time, there's just too much of it. We’ll be talking through the issues that imperfect data causes, and how the panel of institutional investors is addressing those issues, including their strategies for consolidating this data and using it to drive actionable insights into their portfolios.

Topics: Webinar, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Fund of Funds

SHOULD YOU BUILD OR BUY SOFTWARE?

When making the classic build vs. buy decision on software, there are 4 questions every financial services firm should ask themselves to guide their decision-making. Find out what those questions are and what the answers to them may mean for your firm's build vs. buy approach.

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Investment offices often engage in a theoretical exercise around scenarios that could hurt their portfolios. Often these exercises, or stress tests, focus on probable market-based hypotheticals: what if 10-year rates went above 4%? What if inflation or oil prices spiked? Sometimes, these investment offices are equipped with the technology needed to measure the portfolio impact of each scenario.

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BEST PRACTICE IN INSTITUTIONAL AND ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENT OPERATIONS

Have you heard from software vendors that there is a particular best practice for an investment process and that's why you are having to force-fit your processes into their technology? After working with more than 800 clients in the institutional and alternative investment industry for the past 15 years, we've found that there is no such thing as a single best practice for any business process. That's why it's imperative to choose configurable software that will conform to your business processes, not the other way around. Download this white paper to learn more about:

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

TRUE CLOUD VS. FAKE CLOUD: WHY DOES IT MATTER?

Lots of vendors are jumping on the cloud bandwagon these days, and with good reason. With the advantages of stronger cybersecurity, smaller IT footprint, and reduced capital expenditures, cloud-based software solutions are the choice of many in the alternative investment industry. However, not all clouds are created equal - some of the "cloud-based solutions" vendors are hawking are downright fakes. Download this infographic to learn the 8 questions you should be asking your vendors when vetting whether they're truly cloud-based, or just faking it.

Topics: Infographic, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

9 LESSONS CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICERS CAN LEARN FROM CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICERS

In today's environment, being good at investing is no longer enough to guarantee success for Chief Investment Officers (CIOs). With the massive amounts of data flowing into investment offices today, having an optimized data strategy that systematically turns information into actionable insight is what is required to fulfill the CIO's primary charter: to generate consistent returns within an acceptable level of risk.

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

DOWNLOAD OUR WHITE PAPER TO LEARN:

• The two questions your firm MUST be able to answer to be considered by institutional investors
• How NOT to respond to these two all-important questions
• How you can best position your alternative investment firm for success when it comes to attracting institutional capital

Topics: White Paper, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds

ARE YOU MANAGING DIFFERENCES IN VALUATION TIMING AS EFFECTIVELY AND CONSISTENTLY AS YOU COULD BE?

The variations in valuation timings present an ongoing challenge. A rigorous set of standards, shared across the organization is a key to managing those variations effectively and efficiently. Our new white paper details the elements of a consistent, useful valuation process, including: 

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

When meeting with prospects and investors, alternative investment managers frequently market themselves as having a repeatable, predictable, and sustainable investment process that generates superior returns and performance. But how often do those alternative investment firms apply repeatable, predictable, and sustainable processes towards their capital raising and retention efforts, when these efforts are the lifeblood of their business?

Topics: White Paper

Industry leaders Backstop Solutions and Gartland & Mellina Group have teamed up to offer you an e-book detailing the 4 most common mistakes alt investment firms make during SEC audits. Download now to learn:

Topics: E-Book/Report, Real Estate, Hedge Funds, Private Equity / Venture Capital, Fund of Funds

6 PORTFOLIO INSIGHTS YOU'RE MISSING WITH AN UNDEROPTIMIZED DATA STRATEGY

Successful investing depends on turning data into insights. As institutional investment professionals, you have plenty of data flowing in hundreds of disparate sources. But if you have a suboptimal data strategy, you might not be making the most of your information and turning it into actionable portfolio insights. This white paper examines the 6 portfolio insights your organization might be missing with an underoptimized data strategy.

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

Co-written with Institutional Investor, this e-book takes a look at the trend towards bringing investments in-house, as well as the challenges that come along with insourcing. The e-book also examines that technologies that can ease research management, ODD, and portfolio management burdens for overworked and understaffed institutional investment teams.

Topics: E-Book/Report, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

DOWNLOAD OUR WHITE PAPER TO LEARN:

The 5 areas where you can expect to feel the pain when you choose not to go with a system

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds

E-BOOK: HERE’S YOUR GDPR SURVIVAL GUIDE.

If GDPR seems daunting, you’re not alone. Backstop Solutions has created a GDPR Survival Guide especially for the alternative investment industry. This e-book provides a step-by-step plan to managing your GDPR compliance, and provides criteria for how to select technology vendors who can partner with you to help you do so. Download our free GDPR Survival Guide now.

Topics: E-Book/Report

ARE YOU TRACKING PERFORMANCE AND ATTRIBUTION WITH THE RIGOR NECESSARY TO ACCURATELY MEASURE SUCCESS?

Comprehensive and accurate analysis, measurement, and optimization of the multi-asset class portfolio demands a detailed and quantifiable approach. Our new white paper discusses the issue in depth, explaining: 

Topics: White Paper, Pensions / Institutions, Family Offices, Consultants/ OCIOs, Endowments & Foundations, Fund of Funds