Jason Warlond, Curium’s Head of Business Development, APAC, looks at some of the considerations for getting the data in good shape in the event of a fund merger:

From a pure physical move perspective, there are obvious correlations between a fund merger and moving house.  This comparison can go deeper than moving just physical assets and personnel.  In the move your must also consider another asset – Data.

I choose this analogy as nearly everyone has been involved in a house move before, but not everyone has done a Fund Merger.  It is worth considering the time and effort that goes into “packing”, getting ready for the move and then applying that concept to your data.

When moving house we are faced with the collection of items we have accumulated over time and have them spread across the house.  From a data perspective this is analogous to data spread throughout the technical environment that has accumulated over the years of business.  This can include:

• Old data that no longer has relevance but has not previously been reviewed and discarded
• Duplicated data (or worse, almost duplicated with subtle differences that are not easily understood)
• Important data in spreadsheets across the network, or on someone’s desktop
• Important data you know you need but cannot readily place your hands on

Upon a fund merger, one of the requirements will be to move and integrate data between the two funds.  If either organisation has poor control of their data, then the move becomes more costly, risky and time consuming.  Data integration will be one of the biggest challenges for the merged entity and may also be a barrier to the movement.  Not just from a time and cost perspective, but also from applying due diligence in the selection process.

You can reduce risk and cost of the move by getting your house in order now.  Ensure you know where everything is and you are only taking what you need.  Or in data terms, ensure you have an approrpriate “single source of truth” that is of high quality and one that is well documented to ensure data decmocratisation.

And of course, the same rationale can be applied to a custody transition.

Naturally, you do not have to wait for a pending fund merger or custody transition to get your data house in order.  Please contact us at [email protected] to discuss how this can be done.  It will make not only “moving house” far easier, but it will also make living in your current environment much more productive.