By Kariem Abdellatif, head of Mercator® by Citco
Historically, entity management was the forgotten child of the company secretarial world – a myriad of complex local rules and bureaucracy, relegated to the unglamorous back office. Today, in an era of uncertainty, against a backdrop of evolving geopolitical, economic, legal and regulatory issues and where corporate responsibility and accountability are paramount, entity management is moving up the boardroom agenda and fast being considered a discipline in its own right.
There is a greater expectation to keep the board abreast of activity and ensure it is presented with standard KPIs, to give board directors peace of mind that each entity is properly managed and compliant. At the same time, providing the board with this deeper level of visibility has the benefit of allowing in-house legal teams to demonstrate how effective entity management is a key growth driver to support business priorities.
As the profile of entity management increases, so does the importance of getting it right. But entity management today goes beyond mere administrative tasks and handling a few filings in far-flung locations around the world. It is a modern-day logistical nightmare.
How many parties are involved across the entity portfolio? Who is responsible for which companies, in which countries and divisions? Is there a uniform input convention that ensures consistency across functions, countries and entities or does it differ across departments? How is information maintained, what systems are used and who has access? When you add in language barriers, local regulatory quirks and nuances, changing deadlines and formats, the potential for damaging mishaps becomes apparent. At the same time, the risks of non-compliance have never been higher. What might seem like a small misstep or human error – such as delays in filings or incorrect information being submitted to third parties – can have far-reaching reputational and financial consequences and pose significant risk.
In-house and company secretarial teams need oversight and assurance at each level, a complete understanding of the requirements, demands and expectations, and – importantly – they must have the tools and information at their disposal to meet their objectives.
Little surprise, then, that more and more in-house teams are not only outsourcing and seeking help from specialist teams but also pairing this with tech-based solutions to streamline workflows and keep control of their entities around the world.
Mercator® by Citco covers more than 180 jurisdictions via a single point-of-contact model, with services delivered by our highly experienced client-dedicated teams and supported by local operations that cover all time zones. At the center of our offering is Entica® – Mercator’s proprietary entity management solution – providing accuracy, transparency and total control over entity workflows, no matter the jurisdiction.
Entica® has been custom-designed for the modern day multinational, with legal updates to keep abreast of the latest regulatory changes, automated compliance calendars for forward planning and alignment and interactive structure charts to visualize potential change scenarios, plus the tracking of tasks and spend as well as a document repository.
Increasingly, we are also enabling full automation of company secretarial workflows for faster document creation and filings with authorities.
At Mercator, the philosophy that entity management is a discipline in its own right guides our business, and providing value to clients and their stakeholders is a key driver in the development of our services and technology.
Our unrivaled knowledge and focus on entity management, combined with our proprietary technology solution, is evolving how companies view and manage their portfolio of entities, helping them navigate the era of uncertainty and take back control.
All statistics taken from Governance Intelligence’s Entity Management report 2024. This report features findings from a survey of 200 in-house and corporate secretarial teams
