Operational Due Diligence (ODD) specialist firms HedgeAssist and Catalina Partners merged on 1 January 2019.
The combined firms’ professionals, Arne Rovell, Patricia Watters, and Michelle Kline, provide a breadth of operational knowledge, legal and audit expertise, and investigative skills gained over their 64 years of combined industry experience to investors in, and managers of, alternative investment funds.
According to Rovell, gaps in an investment manager’s operational processes and third-party oversight translates into operational risk.
“Our services help investors couple their investment risk analysis with our ODD process in order to better assess total risk,” says Rovell. “We also offer gap analysis services to managers to better equip them for institutional ODD reviews and best practice implementation.”
Addressing the decision to join forces, Watters adds: “In the ten years since Catalina Partners launched, we’ve seen increasing demand from institutional investors and regulators to assess and resolve business risks. Partnering with HedgeAssist brings together a specialised set of legal, finance, and accounting skills to evaluate best business practices for alternative investment firms and to allow investors to make fully informed decisions.”
The combined resources will operate under the HedgeAssist umbrella. The firm specialises in assessing all major types of business risk, including operations, counterparty, compliance, and service provider practices for the relatively opaque private investment industry. The firm’s goal is to provide clients increased assurance of the operational soundness of their business decisions.
