Altvia CEO Featured in Unquote

Kevin Kelly, CEO at Altvia, was recently interviewed by Katharina Semke of Unquote in the UK for the article, Are PE houses too slow on the digital uptake? The publication explores how private equity is facing the push to modernize its way of working partly due to the fast-changing technologies within its portfolio companies. Oftentimes, private equity firms are accused of being slow to change their way of working, especially as digital and more efficient solutions are developed that eclipse their potentially more time-intensive processes. To gain perspective on this critical shift, the article captures input from firms developing new technologies for the industry of which Altvia is a key contributor. Asked if there’s a hesitation within the industry to innovate, Kevin remarked, “On the surface, I would say yes, but I would not say there was an aversion to innovate or an attempt to slow things down. Traditional financial services have quite a head start because of the volume and the operational efficiencies that can be gained by having systems that allow them to operate at scale.” The article notes that private equity firms remain selective when it comes to new software with more strategic factors coming into play such as portfolio management and scalability for growth. As private equity software continues to improve and become more affordable, the incentive to digitalize operations may also stem from other directions including AIFMD, which has, in particular, ushered in new transparency requirements related to annual reports, investor disclosures, and regulatory reporting for alternative investments such as private equity. Furthermore, limited partners are demanding more information and transparency from GPs. Kevin comments, “LPs are no longer okay with just an annual report. They want to know how you came up with your valuations and what the benchmarks and processes were that you used. What is the data that you are collecting from the underlying portfolio to support that valuation?” While the container of information has not changed, the article notes that Kevin thinks LPs now want a lot more detail to back up the summary level information.