1. For what purpose do you use a data room?
ARB Investment Partners uses Drooms Data Rooms to prepare asset documentation prior to business transactions. Our firm provides investment advisory, asset management and real estate development services to our clients. Since we focus on generating long term value through opportunistic investments across various real estate asset classes, a virtual data room (VDR) is the most secure and practical tool to share and work on sensitive information (both for ourselves and our customers).
2. What are the biggest advantages of using a VDR in your case?
Security is, for obvious reasons, the first thing that comes to mind. I highly appreciate the practical side of VDRs. Before VDRs, the sell-side, buy-side, lawyers and advisors all had to juggle the exchange of physical files and CDs, all which had varying structures and permissions. Nowadays, VDRs save us a lot of time and effort because everything is now centered on one platform where we can set and change permission and access with only a click of a button.
3. What modules do you use the most and why?
The two modules that we constantly use are the “Activity Reports” module and the “Q&A” module. Once the permissions per group have been set, Drooms’ activity reports provide us with the much needed insight into who accessed what, when they accessed it, and for how long. This is very important because understanding a bidder’s areas of interest can help us prepare appropriately for negotiations. The Q&A function is also an extremely practical tool when wanting negotiations to progress in a timely manner.
4. What advice would you give to a beginner using a VDR?
Get assistance with selecting your documentation and setting up permissions. When you’re working on a transaction that can contain 20.000+ documents, it is quite helpful to obtain the expertise of an advisor. It could reflect badly on you if a buyer sees that one index point is missing or hidden only for him and not for the other groups because you didn’t set your permissions correctly. We typically aim to implement the “four-eye” principle by getting assistance from a direct colleague or we try to take advantage of Drooms’ experienced project managers, who are available 24/7.
5. Why would you recommend Drooms?
Not only because it is the most accepted tool on the market, but also because most of the people I work with reckon that Drooms gives their customers the most intuitive and easy-to-use data room out there. It also respects all the high-security prerequisites demanded by multinational companies, which reassures potential investors and buyers. Drooms truly works!
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