Acromas Holdings Limited
Acromas Holdings Limited, the holding company of Saga and the Automobile Association (AA), appointed Intralinks again to provide a secure corporate repository for the combined management of critical information for the businesses.
THE SITUATION
The 2007 merger of two major UK service brands, Saga and the AA, created the UK’s largest affinity business, serving 17.6 million customers with products that include roadside assistance, financial services and holidays. With a vast amount of sensitive company information located across the two organizations, it all needed to be consolidated, streamlined and efficiently managed in one central, secure place.
THE IMPLICATIONS
Because of the restrictions on the electronic transfer of data, Acromas Holdings faced the prospect of using paper and couriers to distribute its confidential documentation. Not only was this not secure, but it incurred massive courier bills, lengthened time scales, and decreased the accessibility of information. In turn, this would make reporting to the various stakeholders, including investors, auditors and management, difficult. It also made communicating with outside parties such as legal and financial consultants cumbersome.
THE SOLUTION
Saga had been working with Intralinks since 2004 when Saga was sold to private equity company Charterhouse. Intralinks was used as a virtual data room to manage due diligence in what was a ‘dual track’ process where the company considered both an IPO and trade sale. As a result of this success, Intralinks was chosen again to handle the 2007 merger. Intralinks impressed both parties so much they were further appointed to store all of the new company’s information.
THE RESULT
Acromas Holdings began exploring wider corporate use of Intralinks. Rob Scott, Acromas Holdings chief accountant, saw that Intralinks could be used as a repository for all sensitive information. He implemented an Intralinks exchange to archive all documents and management accounts, comprising more than 20,000 documents and quickly growing.Additional exchanges were also utilized by Acromas’ Company Secretary, John Davies, and the IT team.
THE BENEFIT
Using Intralinks has made the business’s data more accessible and auditable without compromising security. Information that might have taken hours to access and distribute in the past now can be located and distributed to outside firms, for example, in a matter of minutes.
In addition, company users found the Intralinks platform user-friendly and the Customer Service team very helpful during implementation.
