Dealpath Case Study
Dealpath’s streamlined reporting capabilities have created new efficiencies for both our internal and external communication. We can keep team members and investors up-to-date, as well as easily create materials that enable us to build stronger, lasting relationships with our investors and capital partners. This simplicity has helped us to grow and capitalize our business.
Proudly operating in its eighth decade, Klein Enterprises is a vertically integrated real estate firm focused on generating superior returns through development, acquisitions, leasing, and management of residential and commercial assets throughout the East Coast with a focus on the Mid-Atlantic region. The Principals of Klein Enterprises benefit from a deep local network of relationships, established throughout multiple generations serving their partners and the communities in which they live and operate. Since developing its first asset in 1948, Klein Enterprises has grown and diversified its portfolio to include nearly 60 assets—comprising over 2,100 stabilized multifamily units (and additional 725 units in development) and nearly 3.5 million square feet of commercial space—with an aggregate value of approximately $1.475 billion. The company employs its strategy by focusing on trade areas with a stable and expanding consumer base and strong local economic drivers, as well as seeking opportunities to catalyze value through repositioning and development.
Klein Enterprises (“Klein”) specializes in ground-up development and the acquisition, ownership, and management of commercial real estate properties. The firm realized an opportunity to further accelerate growth, but its deal management process was not conducive to the scale it wanted to achieve.
“Up until a few years ago, every deal was a heavy lift,” said Matt Hutton, Associate Director of Acquisitions & Development at Klein. “As we’ve adapted our portfolio strategy, we’ve looked for ways to increase our growth capacity to develop a competitive advantage by targeting larger acquisitions and capitalizations, including portfolio transactions.’
Each member of the highly-experienced team at Klein fulfills various roles throughout the deal and asset lifecycle. Consequently, tracking information as opportunities moved through each stage was challenging. This manual process also required seasoned professionals to take on significant administrative work, limiting their capacity for deal origination and pipeline growth.
In order to effectively reach its growth targets, the Klein team needed a centralized, transparent platform to streamline its operations.
Upon finding Dealpath, Klein Enterprises discovered the value of collaborating from real-time information. The centralization of spreadsheets, databases, and other previously disparate deal details empowered the firm to manage its pipeline with greater transparency, agility, and efficiency. This in turn enabled the team to complete competitive transactions faster by expediting time-sensitive workflows.
“We’ve taken what was previously a collection of compartmentalized datasets and Microsoft Access databases and centralized them within Dealpath,” Hutton said. “Dealpath’s real-time platform empowers us to manage information, transaction timelines, milestones, and critical paths while also staying on top of the minutia of day-to-day work like surveys, permits, and environmental reports that induce time constraints for an active deal.”
Relying on one source for deal information throughout the asset lifecycle broke down silos that previously prevented the highly cross-functional team from accelerating deal flow.
With the implementation of Dealpath, the Klein team discovered the value of uniting its acquisitions and development pipelines in one deal management platform. Partnering closely with Dealpath’s Implementation and Customer Success team, Klein developed custom-made workflows to ensure that key tasks were completed punctually while surfacing relevant information to the team.
Standardizing metrics across its pipeline allowed Klein to screen and underwrite deals in a more agile, data-driven manner. Before implementing Dealpath, the team did not have a reliable way to formalize upside and downside scenarios and then circle back to determine if they met, fell short of, or exceeded these benchmarks. Every deal it sources now adds compounding value by enhancing its reportable database of deal analytics.
“Dealpath gives us the opportunity to deep dive into our year-over-year pipeline reports and easily analyze their impact and performance,” shared Hutton. “We can determine which strategies worked well and learn lessons that help us chart the path forward.”
Beyond offering a data-driven competitive edge, Dealpath also enhanced team communication by creating transparency. Between sourcing and closing, team members involved in the deal can track timelines and view roles and responsibilities throughout the process, ensuring vital details never slip through the cracks. The efficiency and clarity that the Klein team gained with Dealpath were instrumental in helping the firm to close a $134M shopping center portfolio acquisition deal, which included nine shopping centers throughout the Mid-Atlantic region.
“Dealpath’s streamlined reporting capabilities have created new efficiencies for both our internal and external communication,” said Matt Hutton. “We can keep team members and investors up-to-date, as well as easily create materials that enable us to build stronger, lasting relationships with our investors and capital partners. This simplicity has helped us to grow and capitalize our business.”
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