
Benefits
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01
Trusted Team
According to Jeff Goldstein, Director of Finance, “Juniper Square understands our process and pointed out ways to improve it. We know we can trust them to seamlessly manage every step along the way, from subscription configuration to managing the receipt of the subscriptions to conducting thorough reviews to make sure everything is done correctly.”
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02
Efficiency
Goldstein says, “For us, having one combined experience that facilitates moving the subscription process along efficiently, but then also integrates seamlessly into our investor management system so we can communicate with investors is incredibly invaluable. And that’s why you bring on tech partners—it just makes everything run more efficiently.”
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03
Confidence
“We’re dealing with a sophisticated audience, but it still behooves us to make things as efficient and easy as possible for our investor base,” Goldstein says. “We no longer have to worry if we’ve set up everything correctly. In our world, you typically only hear from investors when something is wrong. We don’t hear any of that. This is a binary equation: It either works or it doesn’t work. And when it works, we can do what we do best and that’s invest money. With Juniper Square, we’re confident that the process is working.”
Customer Overview
Founded in 2011, ACRE Management is a global real estate private equity firm that manages capital for institutional and family office investors through a series of private equity and debt funds.
A specialist investor in multifamily housing with a vertically integrated platform, ACRE’s strategies focus on direct real estate equity and credit investments and are concentrated in the United States, with additional properties in development in Southeast Asia and the United Kingdom.
Challenge
ACRE launched its first fund in 2014. At the time, they followed what was a fairly standard industry process—sending a printed PDF to investors who filled it out by hand, signed it, scanned it, and sent it back. Someone at ACRE had to gather and enter all the information required to populate the subscription documents, coordinate distribution, track the status of investor packages once they had been sent, and then follow up to make sure everything was received in good order. Once all the information was received, there were additional manual steps to review documents and update systems. According to Jeff Goldstein, Director of Finance at ACRE, “It worked, but it wasn’t particularly efficient. Investors forgot to sign or send documents; wire instructions were blurry, missing, or not in the format needed to send an international wire; and, occasionally, we would be running an internal audit or KYC process and, months later, discover a missing sub-document.”
To improve the process, ACRE went looking for a solution that was both straightforward for their investor base and also provided them with a sort of automated control checklist so they could be satisfied that they were getting everything they needed from their investors on day one. ACRE started using Juniper Square software in 2017, and it made a huge difference to their day-to-day operations in terms of time saved and efficiency.
But they wanted to take things a step further. While ACRE has grown since it launched its first fund, it’s still a relatively lean organization. They recognized that having a reputable third party manage the subscription process would be an indispensable way to streamline their ongoing operations.
Search for a Solution
ACRE already trusted Juniper Square’s technology, so when Juniper Square launched Administration Services, it was a no-brainer to a partner with a firm that already knew the technology inside and out and could immediately act as an extension of the ACRE team. Instead of managing subscriptions and chasing signatures and reviewing documents, the ACRE team can focus on what they do best: raising and deploying capital, breaking ground on and managing workforce housing and other purpose-built multifamily developments, and delivering stellar service and outstanding investment results to their investors.