Aftermarket Research Provides Insights for Private Equity (PE) Deals

Asia-based PE/VC firms are overwhelmingly optimistic going into 2021, with the majority of respondents to an S&P Global Market Intelligence survey^[1] expecting to see fundraising conditions improve and their focus shift toward making new investments. While the specter of the COVID-19 pandemic still looms large, as is somewhat indicated by the top three sectors gaining attention — IT, Consumer and Healthcare respectively — respondents are also preparing for other risks, including the speed of technological changes and changing consumer behavior. In addition, for many 2021 will see a widespread commitment to improving, or at least addressing, ESG-related factors.

The investment team at this leading firm is charged with identifying potential portfolio companies that have steady and reliable cash flows that would help the firm meet its interest payments. The team is also responsible for monitoring existing portfolio companies to pinpoint any important developments that could affect their financial outlook.

Pain Points

The investment team needs to gather as much information as possible to adequately assess developments with the firm’s current portfolio and identify potential new candidates. The firm was a long-time user of S&P Capital IQ’s platform for detailed company financials and analytical capabilities and wanted to supplement this with brokerage research. In particular, there was an interest in having: 

• Extensive expert knowledge from a wide range of well-known brokerage firms available in one easy-to-access location.
• Strong search capabilities to quickly zero-in on companies of interest.
• Thumbnail views of reports to assess the content before downloading.
• Side-by-side comparisons of reports to easily spot differences. 

In addition, the investment team required personalized logins to benefit from a tailored service (e.g. granular alerts, dashboard) to enhance user workflows, efficiencies and timeliness.

The investment team spoke with S&P Global Market Intelligence (“Market Intelligence”) about its offering in this area.

The Solution

Market Intelligence described its Aftermarket Research offering that includes contributions from top global and regional firms, such as J.P. Morgan, UBS Investment Bank, HSBC, Deutsche Bank, Macquarie, Nomura Securities, Credit Suisse, CICC, Barclays, and RBC Capital Markets. Citigroup research is available exclusively as part of the offering. Access to this rich information would enable the team to:

Access expert market views on companies and industries.

The Aftermarket Research collection features more than 32million reports from 1,970+ global investment research providers, including small- to middle-market brokers,^[2] to help users gain essential perspectives on the companies, sectors, and industries they track. Users can search on numerous fields, including:

• Ticker(s)/Company name
• Analyst
• Keywords
• Date range
• Contributors
• Categories
• Asset class
• Industries
• Geography
• Languages
• Page length

Searches can be saved for quick retrieval, and users can learn about a report of interest before downloading, using precision search capabilities to evaluate:

• Relevancy: Locate pertinent reports, ranked according to keyword search relevancy.
• Table of Contents: View a page-by-page summary of sections and tables in each report.
• Document Thumbnails: Preview the contents and layout of a report before downloading.
• Keywords in Context: Discover the context for a specific keyword or phrase of interest. Keyword searches also support synonyms and acronyms with keyword snippets and visualizations to quickly surface relevant research reports.
• Multi-Preview Options: Compare and contrast multiple reports using keyword mentions, table of contents, and report synopsis.

In addition, users can:

• Organize downloads by using batch-preview print and download functions.
• Monitor the information of most interest by creating saved searches and email alerts.
• Use mobile apps for smartphones and iPads to access the latest research to stay connected to markets and companies.

View this information along with additional company financials.

The S&P Capital IQ platform, an offering of Market Intelligence, is a single source for a powerful array of financial data, Aftermarket Research, and analytics. The web-based platform combines deep information on companies, markets, and people worldwide with robust tools for analysis, idea generation, and workflow management.

Key Benefits

The investment team was impressed with the breadth of our Aftermarket Research coverage and the ability to easily access it through the S&P Capital IQ platform along with other financial data. In particular, they saw value in being able to:

• Quickly gain access to thousands of analyst reports from well-known brokerage houses and market research providers to obtain in-depth company and industry analyses.
• Save time and improve workflows with a one-stop data solution.
• Easily locate the research needed with advanced search tools and receive email alerts of newly available research reports that match their specific search criteria.
• Preview thumbnail views of a report before downloading it to understand the content and layout.
• Compare reports with a unique side-by-side preview capability.
• Access our specialist research support 24/5 to maximize value derived from the collection and address questions as needed.
• Management can download detailed usage, when required.