Last week, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 a pandemic. A move that has increased the number of companies asking employees to work from home. But, when millions of workers are signing in remotely to corporate networks, there is also another threat: Cyberattacks.
As the COVID-19 pandemic gathers momentum as a global health crisis, cybercriminals are taking advantage of the situation. Targeted attempts of infecting corporations and organizations with harmful computer virus, malware and online scamming towards individuals are on the rise.Cyberattacks.
Cybercriminals exploit the vulnerability and uncertainty of the situation by distributing fake corona-themed phishing emails designed to trick you into giving away sensitive information. There are also examples of malware designed to disguise itself as a “Coronavirus map” application.
As another year closes it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the last 12 months. Looking back at 2019, it was a very exciting year for Admincontrol, in which we had record-high use of our data rooms, a new office in London and new functions on the product side.
As another year closes it gives us an opportunity to reflect on the last 12 months. Looking back at 2019, it was a very exciting year for Admincontrol, in which we had record-high use of our data rooms, a new office in London and new functions on the product side.
Here are some highlights from Admincontrol’s Data Room team in 2019.
One exciting fact is that our data rooms were used in more than 1,000 transactions across Europe. We have gained a strong market share in the Nordics, with a 25–50% market share across the region and a rapidly growing presence in the UK and the Netherlands.
Would you like to know more about how our data rooms are used by our customer? Our Business Development Manager, Monica Tang, has taken a deep dive into our stats and numbers in this blog post: How our customers use our data rooms.
In addition to growth in the use of our data rooms, we also saw strong growth in demand for preparation portals and a keen interest in clean rooms.
In fact, 22% of new data rooms launched by Admincontrol in 2019 were preparation portals. And our typical preparation portal customers spend a good amount of time preparing, using the portal for 1–6 months before launching a full data room.
The average data room life span in M&A processes
It is also worth mentioning, that while the request for data rooms and preparation portals spiked in 2019, we also register a significant increase in failure to launch, meaning data rooms that never open up to potential buyers. Launch failure increased by 34 % compared to 2018.
There could be many complex reasons for this – ranging from the early withdrawal of the buyer, negative developments in the process or it could be related to the fact that the Nordic private equity market has fallen significantly compared to a strong previous year. According to Mergermarkets, the Nordic countries in 2019 saw 155 buyout deals clocking a combined value of EUR 9.3 bn, compared to 2018’s EUR 28.8 bn across 232 deals.
The UK market has shown great potential for Admincontrol, with a 50% year-on-year growth since 2015. Early in 2019, we opened our London office (our Glasgow office opened in 2015), and in June, we were able to welcome Berna Albay onboard as the first Data Rooms employee in the UK.
Read more about our UK activities in this blog post: Our London office is growing
We also had the pleasure of welcoming new colleagues in Sweden, Finland and Denmark: Welcome to Admincontrol, Feras Ibrahim, Tytti Hyvönen and Peter Janik!
Parts of Admincontrol’s Data Room Team
Product development is one of our important focus areas and we are always keen to improve and build out our solutions. We are very pleased to note that last year was also a strong year in this area: As many as five new data room functions saw the light of day in 2019.
A new and quite unique feature worth mentioning is the Secure Messaging module. The Secure Messaging module enables users of the Data Room to send and receive confidential messages within the platform. It’s a hybrid between mail and chat, allowing users to communicate securely within their respective teams.
Learn more about Secure Messaging
How can we enable secure communication within the M&A team?
Let’s enable Secure Messaging from Admincontrol. It’s included with their Data Room offers!
At the end of the year, we launched a brand-new sales initiative. Earlier in 2019, we had made changes to our price plans in order to make them as flexible and transparent as possible. In December, we took this one step further by launching our web shop. In the web shop, it is now easier than ever to evaluate and compare our data room plans and prices and purchase the plan that suits your needs.
Visit our web shop2020 does not just mark the start of a new year, we are also entering a new decade, and we have started to plan not only for the coming year but also for the years to follow.
We have several exciting product launches planned (some are being developed as we speak) that we look very much forward to sharing with you. We are also looking to grow our team in the UK further, as well as to open an office in the Netherlands.
We are also hosting and sponsoring quite a high number of events, starting with Super Return International in Berlin in February, so we hope to meet many of you face-to-face this year. To stay informed about events and other exciting news, we recommend signing up for our newsletter and to follow us on LinkedIn.
