Strategic Advisory

Alternative Investments require the consideration of economic data and forecasts to ensure that yield will be achieved over the investment period. Competition for prime assets continues to increase and location, together with the impact of megatrends such as urbanisation, is becoming important for identifying value and market opportunities. Furthermore, managers require insights in areas such as investors’ behavioural trends towards allocation in Alternative Investments, and changing operating models towards insourcing.

Our Market Research Centre is made up of analysts, experts and economists who are experienced in helping market players make decisions. They will provide you with insights on current marketplace opportunities and trends and assist you by forecasting future scenarios and removing any unpredictability.

Our credentials:

• Forecast of the development of Alternative Investments market by 2025;
• Market-entry studies;
• Asset and Wealth Management Revolution: embracing exponential change, considering changes in the AM industry landscape over the coming years;
• Global Pension Funds, best practices in the pension-fund investment process in allocating to alternatives, such as private equity, real estate, infrastructure and hedge funds;
• Forecast on the demand for office space for an independent real-estate development company;
• BIL IMMO index, an indicator tracking the development of the housing market.

Are you looking to raise a new fund? Do you need assistance in finding investors, deciding on your marketing strategy or setting up a bridge facility?
We will assist you with:

• Investor sourcing;
• Formulating the fundraising strategy, including cost-benefit analysis of placement options under different regulatory regimes and selection of a placement agent;
• Planning and executing your fundraising process, including:
  • Preparation of documentation, setup and maintenance of the data room according to market best practice and regulatory requirements
  • Completing investor due diligence questionnaires and answering their queries
• Registering your AIFs in all countries of marketing;
• Complying with AIFM Directive and local regulations in each country of marketing.

When distributing your Alternative funds on a cross-border basis, you might need to consider:

• Are the funds duly registered in the target host countries under the appropriate notification method? Or do they follow the applicable local national private placement rules?
• Are all the annual reporting and filing requirements to these host regulators duly met, in order to maintain such registration status?
• Do the marketing materials used to promote the Alternative funds - factsheets, roadshow materials, websites, etc. - meet all applicable national rules?
• Is initial and ongoing due diligence being performed on the distributors activities? And who is monitoring my administrators, my transfer agents?

The PwC Luxembourg Global Fund Distribution practice can become your single point of contact for fund distribution - from compliance with local rules for selling and marketing your funds and ongoing adherence to regulations in an ever evolving environment, to due diligence of third parties, and development of an appropriate strategy for expanding into new markets.

The increasing pressure induced by compliance and society on organizations demonstrates the importance of an appropriate governance and the key role played by corporate secretaries to support business actions and set up efficient decision process tools.

Entity Governance and Compliance will help to produce your corporate documentation but also to define and maintain the proper governance of your organization.

Our approach for a proper governance is driven by the following equation

Governance x Adhesion = Efficiency

What we can do for you:

• We can assist you to set up, implement, formalise or simply assess your corporate governance.
• We can give you access to adequate IT tool renders the outsourcing invisible for you, your partners and stakeholders.
• We will provide you with a professional dealing with your organisation as an insider, ensuring the respect of regulations, anticipating changes and managing your administration. Close to you, he will interact to set up, monitor, control the proper governance of your structure. He will be the best partner of your organisation.
• We propose a collaboration tool (called e-CS) to support our company secretary solutions. This tool can be designed to stick to your own organization and reduce the learning time of users.

Alternative Investments Experts are facing increasing pressure from investors and stakeholders for transparency on how they deal with environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks, as well for green building certifications.

Our team will support you in defining your ESG strategy, formalising it into a policy and deploying this policy across every aspect of your business. When reporting, they will seek third-party assurance for you. They will support players with ESG reporting and participation in industry initiatives such as the GRESB Assessment. Our team also comprises accredited professionals for the most commonly recognised certification schemes, namely BREEAM, LEED, DGNB and HQE.

Our engineers and technicians, who have a strong background in the energy efficiency of buildings and an excellent knowledge of the Alternative Investments industry, can deliver a wide range of services for clients willing to engage in a Green Building certification scheme, and can assist building owners and developers in obtaining certification from the different bodies and offer complementary services associated with the Green Building certification process.

Our credentials:

• >55 certification projects completed in Luxembourg and abroad;
• Approx. 325,000 m² of office space certified by PwC;
• World’s first triple certification (BREEAM - DGNB - HQE);
• Main clients: EU institutions, EIB.

Does your deals team need assistance with screening/sourcing investments, negotiations and /or documentation? With skilled advisers for every aspect of a deal, we make sure you benefit from our years of experience and extensive business network in a variety of sectors across the world, which means we factor in local specificities.

Our team of experts helps organisations execute successful deals and create value through mergers, acquisitions, disposals and restructuring. We work with you to develop the right strategy before the deal, identifying issues, points of negotiation and value.

Our Services include:

• Deal sourcing:
  • Within our large client base we can identify suitable candidates for Alternative investors, thus creating proprietary opportunities
  • Screening according to defined criteria, such as ESG, Shariah compliance, etc.

Investment thesis assessment, including consideration for tax and operational implications of options;

• Financial analysis and modelling:
  • Our valuation experts offer an unrivalled breadth and depth of valuation experience in a wide variety of industries. We have teams of financial engineers and mathematicians ensuring that we address your unique circumstances in an appropriate manner.
  • Strategic, commercial, operational, financial and tax due diligence
• The negotiations of Sale and Purchase Agreements;
  • Analyse risks/opportunities that can impact your assessment of the target/business and its value
  • Identify non value or worthless items within Net Asset Value
  • Review and preparation of business plan
  • Review of Purchase mechanism
  • Review of SPA and other transaction documents from financial and tax perspective
• Deal structuring from the tax and financial point of view.
• M&A Services
  • Identification of potential assets
  • Strategic advise
  • Identification of potential acquirers
  • Marketing the asset
    
    

Our credentials:

• Wide range of clients, especially family offices, pension funds, insurance companies, banks and sovereign investment funds;
• Local and cross-border experience with local players investing in Luxembourg, inbound investments from foreigners and outbound investments from holding structure in luxembourg.

For fund investments

It takes time and careful planning to prepare for a smooth exit. You have to make sure your objectives are aligned with those of the portfolio company’s management, while aiming at achieving your target return.

We’ll strengthen your efforts by providing an independent strategic assessment and advice in the following areas:

• IPO preparation
• deal documentation, data room maintenance and management;
• management incentives strategy;
• introduction to suitable buyers, whether strategic or financial;
• exit valuation and SPA negotiation;
• exit tactical planning, incorporating local requirements and tax nuances for aspects such as cash repatriation;
• exit strategy;

For the fund

• we help you deal with all formalities to wind down a structure at the end of the fund's life cycle;
• we support you in case of unsuccessful investments;
• we liaise with creditors and assist with the debt recovery process;
• we act as a third party liquidator or support the liquidator during the liquidation process.

For the Management of a backed business

We help you deal with a variety of challenges:

• development of the business strategy to support decisions such as expansion into a new market or product range, reconsidering your marketing and distribution strategy, digitisation of your business, etc.;
• help you optimise your capital structure;
• assess your operating model and implement operational improvements, such as cost reduction, supply chain optimisation;
• implementation of new systems and tools.
  
  

For the Fund Manager

We help you create value in your portfolio companies through:

• strategic assessment as well as development and implementation of a new strategy for your portfolio company;
• turnaround and restructuring;
• provision of highly experienced interim management team;
• portfolio monitoring ensuring adherence to investment strategy, risk levels and continuous compliance with any specific criteria, e.g. ESG, Islamic finance restrictions etc.