Diligent > Case Studies > EDENS Customer Story

EDENS Customer Story

Customer Company Size

Large Corporate

Region

America

Country

United States

Product

Diligent Board and Leadership Collaboration solution

Tech Stack

Cloud-based CRM platform
Digital signatory tools

Implementation Scale

Enterprise-wide Deployment

Impact Metrics

Productivity Improvements
Digital Expertise
Customer Satisfaction

Technology Category

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Connectivity Platforms

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Remote Collaboration

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

About The Customer

EDENS is a retail real estate owner, operator and developer of shopping centers, grocery stores and local retail spaces across the U.S. Founded in 1966 and headquartered in Washington, DC., the company operates more than 125 retail properties with offices in Columbia, S.C.; Boston; Charlotte; Atlanta; Miami; Dallas and Denver. EDENS is a private real estate investment trust with three institutional owners: J.P. Morgan Asset Management, the New York State Teachers' Retirement System and The Blackstone Group.

The Challenge

EDENS is a private real estate investment trust with three institutional owners: J.P. Morgan Asset Management, the New York State Teachers' Retirement System and The Blackstone Group. Therefore, the company's needs for board meetings and collaboration differ from those of a public company. Not only must the three institutional investors securely access board documents, consents and other information, but they also need to share that access with non-board members within their respective teams. Prior to adopting the Diligent platform, EDENS and its administrative staff were creating and distributing hard-copy board books for each board meeting and circulating consent documents via email, which presented a logistical and production problem.

The Solution

EDENS centralized its director communication and tracking of consents and historical actions with the Diligent Board and Leadership Collaboration solution. With this centralized reporting platform, EDENS can easily maintain accurate data stores for its stakeholders without manual oversight. All of the company's investors can quickly access the information they need for informed decision making. By using the Diligent Board and Leadership Collaboration solution, EDENS eliminated this logistical challenge and replaced it with a more efficient board management process that provides directors with access to real-time documents, historical meeting minutes and voting results.

Operational Impact

EDENS produced and transported dozens of board books to every quarterly meeting, following up after the fact with conference calls for consents and other board actions. By using the Diligent Board and Leadership Collaboration solution, EDENS eliminated this logistical challenge and replaced it with a more efficient board management process that provides directors with access to real-time documents, historical meeting minutes and voting results.
Given EDENS' unique board structure, its investors need the ability to share board documents beyond the directors themselves. With Diligent, any documentation or reports that the company's private equity owners need to review are easy to access from anywhere and are protected with secure encryption.
The fact that EDENS had already adopted Diligent before COVID-19 made the transition to remote board meetings that much easier. The company and its investors were already delivering documents and producing consents on the platform, so the only thing that needed to change during the pandemic was the introduction of virtual board meetings. Everything else at that point was business as usual.
Diligent has helped EDENS live up to its ESG commitments by simplifying governance at the board level, enabling the company to take bold steps toward its sustainability and diversity goals with the confidence that its governance and regulatory needs are met.