This page provides an overview of Digital MFN elections, a feature of the Premier tier of Insight for Funds, with a focus on the GP perspective.
Below, you will learn how you can use Ontra's Digital MFN feature to:
- Distribute and review investing parties’ MFN forms in a single, digital platform
- Give investing parties a simple and effective way to submit elections with less effort
- Automatically create a single source of truth for all investing parties' obligations
Watch the video below for an overview of how this feature works and continue reading on for additional guidance on how you can distribute and review Digital MFN forms using Ontra.
| ℹ️ | For information on MFN form creation, please reference the article Digital MFN form creation. |
Distribute MFN Forms to LPs
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Only Insight Admins or Standard Users with edit access to the fund for which the MFN form was created can distribute and/or manage MFN forms. Learn more about Insight user permissions in the article Unified permissions in Insight. |
Once you’ve drafted an MFN election form in Insight, you’re ready to approve the forms and digitally distribute them to investing parties.
To digitally distribute forms from Insight, navigate to the appropriate MFN project.
When you first login to Insight, you’ll arrive on the Funds Dashboard.
Select MFN Projects in the menu on the left hand side
Then, select the project for which you would like to distribute forms.
Next, click Send & Track Forms to begin the distribution process
Enter the email addresses for the investing party to which you’d like to send forms.
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Avoid using a group email or distribution list as a recipient when possible. For security purposes, the link that each recipient receives only allows one user to access the form. If multiple people at an Investing Party need access, please add each intended recipient to the distribution list with a unique email address for each individual. |
To specify multiple recipients for a single investing party, use commas to separate their email addresses.
If you intend to email an investing party a PDF form outside of the Insight platform, remove that individual investing party from the distribution list by selecting Remove Recipient from the kebab menu on the right side of each investing party row.
Alternatively, if you need to remove recipients in bulk, select the checkboxes next to the investing party you’d like to remove and from the Actions dropdown in the upper left corner, click Send Offline.
Once all email addresses for the distribution list are final, select Send at the bottom-left to send forms to the selected investing party.
Note that the form status column in the Sent Electronically table will now display a Sent status for that recipient.
Managing a sent digital MFN form
After you specify recipients and send a digital MFN form, you can make modifications from the Insight platform. Read below to see how you can Preview the sent form, Resend the form as a reminder, Copy the link to the form to send directly to an LP outside of the platform, Add Recipients to an existing investing party, Upload a copy of the form that was completed outside of the Ontra platform, and Void a form that was sent to an investing party.
Preview a form
To preview a copy of the form that the investing party has received, select the kebab menu on the right side of the investing party row and then select Preview.
This will bring you to a preview version of the same form that the investing party is able to view.
Resend a form
To resend an MFN form to remind an LP to make elections, select the kebab menu on the right side of the investing party row and then select Resend.
Then, check the box next to the recipient to which you wish to resend the form and click Resend at the bottom of the screen.
If there are multiple email addresses for an investing party, you can select one or multiple addresses to resend the form.
Copy MFN form link
To copy the link to an MFN form for a specific investing party, select the kebab menu on the right side of the investing party row and then select Copy Form Link. This can be useful if you need to provide the recipient with a direct link to the form, instead of going through email.
You will see a green Link copied success message at the top of the screen, indicating that the link is copied to your clipboard.
Add recipients to an active MFN form
To add additional recipients for a specific investing party to an MFN form, select the kebab menu on the right side of the investing party row and then select Add Recipients.
Add the new recipients, separating multiple email addresses with a comma, and then select Add at the bottom of the screen.
This will send an email of that investing party's MFN form to those new recipients.
Upload a form from outside Ontra
To upload a form completed outside of Ontra for a specific investing party, select the kebab menu on the right side of the investing party row and then select Upload Form.
Then, upload the completed PDF and select Upload at the bottom of the screen to load the investing party's elections onto the platform.
Void
To void an MFN form for a specific investing party, select the kebab menu to the right side of the investing party, then select Void. This is useful for when you need to change the email recipient for an MFN form for an investing party.
To confirm, select Void in the pop-up window.
The investing party will then be removed from the Sent Electronically list and re-appear in the Unsent Forms. From there, you can modify the recipient Email Addresses list and re-send the form.
To void MFN forms for all investing parties, follow the steps below:
- From the MFN Projects dashboard, select the kebab menu on the right hand side of the form that you would like to void.
- Select Unapprove from the drop down menu, then confirm this step by clicking Unapprove and Void to void all forms that were previously sent to investing parties.
- To make form edits before resending, select the kebab menu on the right hand side of the form and click Edit.
- After you’ve made any necessary changes, navigate to the Approve Form step and select Approve Form.
Manage Form Submission Notifications
By default, only the MFN form sender will receive email notifications when an investing party submits their form. If you’d like additional Insight users to receive email notifications, including your external counsel, add them to the MFN notification list by following the steps below:
From the MFN Projects dashboard, select the project you’d like to update notification recipients for.
Next, select Send & Track Forms.
In the upper right hand corner, select Manage Notification Recipients.
Type the email address of the intended recipient.
To add more than one recipient, select Add Additional Recipient, and when finished, select Save at the bottom of the screen.
LPs submit elections
After you’ve distributed forms, each investing party recipient receives an email notification prompting them to complete a new MFN form. Watch the video below for an overview of that process, and continue reading to better understand how LPs navigate the election process.
| ℹ️ | For more information on the LP-side of the Ontra digital MFN process, refer to our article Digital most favored nations (MFN) elections | LPs. |
The recipients for each investing party will receive an email inviting them to set up an Ontra account to access their form. From the email, the investing party clicks Set Up Account to initiate login to a secure portal.
The first time an investing party makes MFN elections using Insight, they’ll need to create a password and agree to Ontra’s terms of service and privacy policy.
Once the investing party agrees and clicks Continue, they’re brought to a documents dashboard where they can view the MFN Election forms for relevant entities.
The investing party selects the MFN form of interest and can use the table of contents on the left-hand panel to toggle between the cover letter and each MFN provision.
Viewing the election form will change the investing party's form status to Opened on your dashboard.
The recipient can use the SmartLine feature to identify similarities and differences among provisions before making a selection. To do so, the investing party clicks SmartLine in the upper right corner of any obligation category, sets a provision as a base, and reviews the redline that results. The investing party will be able to see which provisions already exist in their side letter.
After reviewing electable provisions, an investing party can use checkboxes to make their selections.
Non-electable provisions are included for read-only purposes.
The investing party sends their completed form to the GP by selecting Submit at the bottom of the form, which changes their form status to Submitted.
While editing or after submitting, the investing party can click Download in the upper right corner of the form to download the MFN form for their own records.
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After submitting elections, LPs will be able to log back into the platform to review their selections. They will not be able to modify elections unless the GP voids and resends the election form. |
Accept & Review LP Elections
After an LP submits elections, the individual who sent the election forms and any notification recipients will receive an email noting that a new MFN form has been submitted. They will be prompted to click the Review link in the email which brings them to the Insight platform. Alternatively, the reviewer can review forms by clicking View Submitted Form in the Insight platform form the Form Distribution dashboard.
Reviewers can scroll through the form to review elections. They will be able to download the form for their records by selecting Download in the upper right corner of the document.
To approve the submitted form, the reviewer selects Approve in the upper right corner of the document.
Then, the reviewer selects Approve and Create Elections to update the LP’s new and existing elections in Insight.