Need to Meet: Larry Fontillas, Managing Director for the Americas, ansarada

Founded in Australia in 2005 as a provider of data rooms designed for the document-heavy M&A due diligence process, ansarada is making a global push to win new clients in the United States and Europe.

Larry Fontillas, managing director for the Americas, said the company opened offices around the world partly to fulfill its policy of an in-house expert answering any customer call within three rings at any time.

“Everything we do has to answer the question: ‘Does this make it easier for M&A?’” said Fontillas. “The last thing you want is someone to leave a deal because of the process or if they can’t get into the data room.”

Ansarada has bulked up to a staff of more than 120 people, with three major offices in Chicago, London and Sydney, up from about 80 a year ago. Fontillas joined ansarada in 2014 after decades in the information technology sector. He is focused on the U.S. market and has been adding sales people with financing and technology backgrounds in New York City and Chicago, with the possibility of adding other offices.

Among the technology features in ansarada’s data rooms is watermarking of all documents. While parties in a deal may remove documents from a data room, ansarada may kill the documents if they’re being viewed by an unapproved party. That includes documents that have been emailed to others.

Users may tap into their data rooms with any Web browser, with no plug-ins required. The technology allows deal teams and bidders to access the data room from any device at any time in any country.

After establishing itself in its home country by working on the sale of billionaire James Packer’s TV and magazine holdings to an affiliate of CVC, ansarada now commands roughly 70 percent of the corporate M&A market in Australia, according to an internal estimate shared with Buyouts.

In the United States, the company competes with IntraLinks, Merrill DataSite, RR Donnelley Venue and others.

On the private equity side, ansarada has worked with Carlyle Group, CVC Partners and Pacific Equity Partners in Australia. Its client list includes CB Richard Ellis, Duff &Phelps, and KPMG Corporate Finance Mergers & Acquisitions.

Phone: 312.720.6182

Email: larry.fontillas@ansarada.com

Website: http://www.ansarada.com/

–By Steve Gelsi

Photo of Managing Director Americas Larry Fontillas courtesy of ansarada