Streamlining analysis-driven advisory throughout different industries with Ideals

Leading analysis-driven advisory with a commitment to every aspect of the deal

Superia is the leading provider of financial advisory services in the Baltics. With offices in Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius, the company is proud of its independent, analysis-driven financial advice and its expertise in energy, renewables, utilities, infrastructure, TMT, and consumer goods.

Having switched from another virtual data room provider two years ago, the company has been using Ideals for all its due diligence activities. With vast experience on other platforms, Mark Adams, its Senior Associate, is adamant that in terms of usability, “this really sets Ideals apart!”.

The context

Superia was first established in 2013 following a buyout of two corporate finance firms in Estonia and Latvia. It then merged with Oaklins in Lithuania to form a pan-Baltic company that specializes in providing independent financial advice on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, privatizations, equity financing, corporate restructurings, and valuations. 

For quite some time, the company had been relying on different technologies to optimize the due diligence process, making it more efficient for their clients. When in 2020, Superia’s team realized that they were not getting value for money from their virtual data room provider.

They were paying for many functions but finding that users were struggling to get to grips with simple tasks, such as uploading and downloading documents. The team was especially keen to reduce the training time that was eating into their day – “it became really tedious because it was not just about teaching one person.” Mark affirmed.

Key challenges

With a highly successful track record, the firm advises on many transactions every year, and as such, it is crucial to be able to share information efficiently with clients and their clients’ advisers, keeping the data stored in a secure and professional environment.

Instead of spending time training new users and providing clients and advisors support on the VDR, could spend more time delivering on the client’s needs whilst relying on Ideals’ intuitiveness. Mark explained that his previous employer had mostly used another virtual data room provider, and while they had some useful functions, they were definitely not as easy to use.

To ensure that their clients received the best service, Superia needed a virtual data room to:

• Maintain confidential data in a secure virtual environment.
• Share financial information efficiently with many different stakeholders.
• Allocate different permission levels to safeguard legal documents and comply with company law requirements.
• Redact uploaded documents to keep sensitive information protected.
• Set up and easily replicate a standard structure for each project.

Solution

Having chosen Ideals, Superia has been using the platform for the past two years, successfully advising on several transactions with many more in the pipeline.

One of their most successful deal was BaltCap’s sale of Unimed and Qvalitas, which entailed a two-round limited auction with the parallel sale of two stand-alone businesses. For the due diligence, Superia used the Ideals VDR to:

• Store financial and legal due diligence reports.
• Update trading and financial models securely.
• Ensure communication with different stakeholders remained organized and completely confidential, with separated permission levels.
• Get documents signed off per Baltic e-signature requirements.

The future

Superia is now an associate member of Invest Europe and was named Financial Adviser of the Year by the Latvian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, which promotes further development of the venture capital sector in Latvia.

The company was recently the sole financial adviser to Omniva, Inbank , and minority shareholders in their 2022 sale of a 99% shareholding in the leading e‑commerce payment service provider to the third-largest provider of financial services in the Baltic region, Maksekeskus and Luminor Bank, respectively.

As the company accumulates many victories, they continue to use Ideals, and since the successful sale of BaltCap’s private healthcare assets early last year, Superia “has always recommended Ideals,” concluded Mark.