Written by Rob Hagmeier

Written by Rob Hagmeier

Executive Director
Onboarding

For partners and employees at private capital firms, carried interest programs are a key monetary incentive, often outpacing salary and bonus vehicles for senior team members.  Given carry’s status in the industry, it is vital that CFOs and anyone tasked with tracking valuations and payments for employees, does so accurately.  Unfortunately, this does not always happen and errors in the process are commonplace.  As a technology partner, EWM Global possesses visibility into how firms across the globe manage their carry vehicles, and we see clear and consistent patterns of how carry processes evolve over time. 

Most carry-tracking starts out as a single-tab spreadsheet apportioning a fund’s overall carry down to employee-level using a few simple Excel formulas.  Maintaining this type of file is easy at the offset, but without a plan to address changes in an efficient and auditable manner, a once-simple spreadsheet can rapidly grow disorganized.  Complexity, introduced as the result of employee turnover and additional point grants, can skew the overall carry percentage ownership causing formulas to break. Scenarios such as new joiners receiving points with alternative vesting schedules, or the sudden need to track certain allocations of carry as income and others as capital gains, can quickly (and often unexpectedly) force carry-tracking sheets into disarray. 

EWM Global’s involvement in a client’s carry administration process often begins when a client’s internal spreadsheets are beginning to break.  For larger funds, it may be the sheer amount of transactional and apportionment data which teams must maintain on a regular basis, while smaller funds might find themselves struggling with data scattered across multiple spreadsheets, tabs and sources with the full knowledge of plan mechanics maintained solely in the CFO’s head. 

EWM Global’s unique platform is designed to organize complex plan history into a convenient array of data visualizations and reports.  The final product makes carry data readily accessible, easy to update and maintain, and visually appealing to both client admins and carry recipients. 

Organizing historical carry information in preparation for loading it onto a new platform can be a daunting task for any CFO with a demanding schedule and limited time; this is where EWM Global’s Onboarding Team plays a vital role. The team possesses a wealth of industry knowledge and works hand in hand with clients to understand and transpose data onto the EWM platform.  Throughout the entire digitized onboarding process, the client has immediate access to the EWM Onboarding System, which provides a real-time graphical representation of the implementation lifecycle, with the ability to drill down to the status of each individual task. Digitized task management and role assignment not only increases transparency and efficiency throughout the implementation process, but also ensures implementation goals and objectives are achieved.  The EWM Global team acts as a partner for our clients to promote Best Practices and helps maximize the efficiency of carry administration.  Combined with our innovative technology, EWM Global helps private capital firms of all sizes to onboard their data and unlock its full potential.

EWM Global is a leading FinTech company supporting Financial Services companies around the world in the Digital Transformation of their Incentive and Retention Award plan administration. Our firm has an international reach operating out of Zurich (Switzerland), London (England) and Stamford, CT (United States) to serve our clients, which include some of the world’s largest Banks, Asset Managers, Wealth Managers, Insurance companies and Private Equity firms.

To find out how you can unlock the full potential of your Carry data, contact us at marketing@ewmglobal.com.