How can private equity professionals quickly assess company ownership structures?
A complex or opaque ownership structure can immediately disqualify an otherwise promising investment target. For PE professionals, ownership data often remains frustratingly obscure. This opacity stems not only from minimal disclosure requirements for stakeholders holding less than 10%, but also from the tedious process of manually extracting and piecing together information from various publications. Without efficient access to comprehensive ownership data, PE firms risk missing valuable deals due to time constraints or deprioritization of thorough due diligence.
Directly Using Official Sources
This traditional approach involves consulting primary sources such as federal registers, Companies House, or in Belgium, Staatsblad and the KBO. While time-consuming, it remains effective when resources permit. Some PE firms have begun downloading publications and processing them through LLM chatbots, a method that works until it doesn't. Can you trust that the AI hasn't hallucinated or missed critical information? Without sophisticated prompt engineering, this approach quickly becomes unreliable. Nevertheless, it remains a viable option when alternatives aren't available.
Score: 65%
Cons: Time-intensive, requires significant manual effort
Pros: Cost-effective, potentially comprehensive (with sufficient resource allocation)
Company Websites + News
Investment targets often disclose investors and board members on their websites or in press releases. Major funding rounds and M&A activities typically generate media coverage. Rather than a standalone strategy, this approach best complements official source research. Together, they can provide a reasonably complete ownership picture without subscription fees, though at the cost of significant time investment.
Score: 25%
Cons: Substantial information gaps, ineffective as a standalone method
Pro: Relatively time-efficient
Private Market Data Tools (like openthebox)
Specialized platforms aggregate, structure, and analyze data from multiple sources, significantly streamlining the ownership assessment process. While general-purpose platforms exist, at openthebox, we've designed our solution specifically for financial services professionals, prioritizing speed, usability, and information relevance, critical factors in the time-sensitive PE deal environment.
Score: 80%
Cons: Requires subscription investment
Pros: Highest efficiency-to-thoroughness ratio, purpose-built for financial professionals
Dedicated Data Room (custom or a tool like Ansarada)
Data rooms provide secure environments where potential acquisition targets share confidential information with interested parties during the due diligence process. This approach offers direct access to otherwise unavailable ownership data, but typically only becomes available later in the deal process. Moreover, in this case, as an investor, you rely fully on data offered by the selling party, leaving you exposed to bad faith actors. Combine this approach with publicly available data, and you can rule out some deals even before reaching the due diligence stage.
Score: 70%
Pros: Access to proprietary ownership information, direct from the source
Cons: Available only after initial interest is established, requires extensive analysis time, potential for intentional omissions or misrepresentations
Conclusion
At the end of the day, speed and accuracy in ownership assessment can determine whether a promising deal makes it to your pipeline or slips away to a competitor. While traditional methods provide completeness at the cost of time, and data rooms offer depth only at later stages, specialized tools bridge the gap where it matters most: the early screening and evaluation phase. With openthebox, private equity professionals gain immediate access to structured ownership insights, reducing wasted effort and ensuring no opportunity is overlooked.
