Bringing complex investor structures under control 

The challenge: Managing complex entity relationships across the business 

A fund administrator was managing increasingly complex investor and corporate structures involving companies, trusts, partnerships, funds and nominees, connected through beneficial owners, directors, controllers, trustees, protectors, authorised signatories and other related parties.

The same individuals and entities frequently appeared across multiple structures in different capacities. An individual might, for example, be a director of several companies, a beneficial owner within another structure and an authorised signatory elsewhere.

The organisation did not have a central entity management platform capable of maintaining those relationships as a connected structure. Information was held across operational systems, compliance applications, spreadsheets and departmental databases, with investor servicing teams maintaining one view of a client relationship while ownership and control information was held separately by compliance teams.

As a result, establishing a complete picture of an investor or corporate structure could require significant manual investigation. Teams needed to determine who ultimately owned or controlled an entity, identify the other structures an individual was connected to, confirm current signing authorities and establish whether politically exposed persons (PEPs) appeared anywhere within the ownership chain.

Bringing those answers together from multiple data sources created significant operational effort and increased the risk of incomplete or inconsistent information.

Why it mattered: The same entities appeared across multiple structures 

The complexity was not simply the number of entities the organisation administered. It was the relationships between them.

The same person or corporate entity could appear repeatedly across different records and structures. For example, the same individual could be a director of several companies, hold appointments within other entities and act as an authorised signatory for a separate fund structure.

Because those relationships were not managed from a single entity record, information could be duplicated across different systems and spreadsheets. When an individual’s address, contact details, role or regulatory status changed, teams had to identify and update each relevant record.

This increased maintenance effort and created the risk of inconsistencies developing between records.

It also had implications for compliance. Establishing ultimate beneficial ownership, understanding control structures and identifying PEP exposure required teams to piece together information across multiple sources. The more layers a structure contained, the more difficult and time-consuming it became to establish and evidence the relationships between the parties involved.

Management, auditors and regulators also needed reliable information on beneficial ownership, director appointments, control relationships and signatory permissions. Producing that view from fragmented records required further manual investigation and reporting.

The organisation needed a way to create each entity once, connect it to every structure in which it appeared and understand the complete ownership and control hierarchy from that single record.

The solution: One entity, connected through every relationship 

The organisation implemented PureClient as its central client data and entity management platform.

Puritas worked with the client to bring individuals, companies, trusts, partnerships, funds, nominees and other entities into PureClient and establish the relationships between them.

Instead of maintaining separate versions of the same person or organisation wherever they appeared, each entity was created once and connected to the relevant structures through configurable relationships.

One entity, multiple relationships 

Where the same individual appeared across several structures, PureClient maintained a single record for that person.

For example, rather than creating separate records for an individual who was a director of three companies and an authorised signatory for another entity, the individual was created once and linked to each organisation through the appropriate relationship.

The same approach was applied across beneficial owners, controllers, trustees, protectors, shareholders, power of attorney holders and other connected parties.

When information relating to an entity changed, it could be updated once and automatically reflected across every structure with which that entity was associated.

This eliminated duplicate records across structures and removed the need to maintain the same information in multiple places.

Mapping complex ownership and control structures

Puritas used PureClient’s configurable entity and relationship framework to reflect the different structures administered by the organisation.

Relationships were established between individuals, companies, trusts, partnerships, funds and other entities to show roles including director, beneficial owner, controller, authorised signatory, trustee, protector and shareholder.

This created a connected hierarchy that allowed teams to navigate up through ownership chains, down through subsidiary structures and across related entities.

Instead of manually reconstructing a structure from different records, users could see how an individual or entity was connected across the organisation and identify ultimate beneficial ownership, corporate ownership layers, control relationships, shared directors and signatories, and other connected parties.

Information that had previously required significant manual investigation across multiple sources could now be identified within seconds.

Bringing compliance information into the structure 

Connecting entities and relationships also changed how the organisation approached compliance oversight.

Compliance teams could identify ultimate beneficial owners, controllers and PEPs within the context of the structures to which they were connected.

Rather than reviewing an individual or entity in isolation and then manually determining where else that party appeared, teams could see the relationships directly within PureClient.

This provided complete visibility across ownership and control structures and supported customer due diligence (CDD) and KYC reviews, ongoing monitoring and the investigation of compliance exceptions.

Reporting across entities and relationships 

The organisation also gained the ability to report directly across the entity and relationship information held within PureClient.

Reports could be produced covering beneficial ownership hierarchies, director appointments, control relationships, authorised signatories, power of attorney arrangements, PEP exposure, compliance exceptions and connected parties.

Because the underlying entities and relationships were maintained within the same system, teams no longer had to manually bring together information from separate systems and spreadsheets to create those views.

This gave management, compliance teams, auditors and regulators a more accurate, transparent and auditable view of the structures administered by the organisation.

The outcome: Complete visibility across complex structures 

The organisation moved from managing complex investor and corporate structures through disconnected systems, spreadsheets and duplicate records to maintaining every entity and relationship within PureClient.

Each individual and organisation is now created once and connected to every relevant structure through the appropriate relationship. This has eliminated duplicate records across structures and removed the need to maintain the same information in multiple places.

Operational and compliance teams have complete visibility of how individuals, companies, trusts, funds and other entities are connected. Ownership and control structures that previously had to be reconstructed manually can now be navigated directly within PureClient, with key relationships identified within seconds.

Compliance teams can more easily establish ultimate beneficial ownership, identify controllers and PEP exposure, and understand where an individual or organisation appears elsewhere across the client population. Management, audit and regulatory reporting can be produced from the same underlying entity and relationship data.

The result is a more controlled and scalable approach to managing complex structures, reducing administrative effort and operational risk while improving data quality, transparency and regulatory oversight.

“What was once a collection of disconnected records became a fully connected view of entities, ownership and control. By maintaining each entity only once and linking it through configurable relationships, PureClient gave us complete visibility across even the most complex structures while significantly reducing operational risk and administration effort.” 
Sorin Mihu, Business Analyst, Puritas

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See how PureClient maps ownership and control across every structure you administer.