Privacy Statement

Privacy Statement (January 2021)

Clearwater International (“we”, “us”, “our”) is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This statement sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect will be processed by us. Please read this privacy statement carefully to understand our views and practices and your rights regarding your personal data. By visiting www.clearwaterinternational.com (our website) your personal information will be processed as described in this statement.

Clearwater International is made up of different legal entities and partnerships registered in different jurisdictions, some of which are limited liability entities. This privacy statement is issued on behalf of all Clearwater International entities, and to the extent that we are a data controller.

  • Clearwater International K/S, a limited liability partnership registered in Denmark with number 28 14 81 43. Its registered office is at Dalgas Avenue 48, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark
  • Clearwater, a limited liability partnership registered in France with number 528 342 074. Its registered office is at 121 Avenue des Champs Elysées, 75008 Paris, France
  • Clearwater International GmbH, a limited liability partnership registered in Germany with number HRB 113698. Its registered office is at MainTor Panorama, Neue Mainzer Strasse 2-4, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
  • CWII Corporate Finance Limited, a limited liability company registered in Ireland with number IE551342. Its registered office is at 19 Fitzwilliam Place, Dublin 2, Ireland
  • Clearwater International, S.A, a limited liability partnership registered in Portugal with number 508209072. Its registered office is at Rua Aristides Sousa Mendes, 225, A6 / 4150-088 Porto, Portugal
  • Clearwater International España, S.L, a limited liability partnership registered in Spain with number B65955353. Its registered office is at C/ Serrano, 45 4º, 28001 Madrid, Spain
  • Clearwater Corporate Finance LLP, a limited liability partnership registered in England & Wales with number OC311299. Its registered office is at 6th Floor, 9 Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2BJ. Clearwater Corporate Finance LLP (FRN:483062) is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority to carry out corporate finance business. Its VAT registration number is GB 860 203461
  • Brera Advisory SpA, a joint stock company registered in Italy with number 09716630968. Its registered office is at Via Agnello, 8 Milano, 20121, Italy
  • Valentum Partners AB, a limited liability partnership registered in Sweden with number 969764-9508. Its registered office is at Riddargatan 7A, 114 34 Stockholm, Sweden
  • Clearwater International Netherlands B.V., a limited liability partnership registered in Netherlands, with number: 32083445 0000. Its registered office is: Villa Hestia, Utrechtseweg 29, 1213TK Hilversum.

In addition, Clearwater International has an affiliate entity located in China with whom we do not share personal data.

  • Personal Data
  • What information do we collect from you?
  • Why do we collect this information?
  • How long do we keep hold of your information?
  • Who might we share your information with?
  • How is your data stored and kept secure?
  • What are your rights?
  • Changes to this Statement
  • Cookies
  • Contact Us

Personal Data

The term “personal data” means any information relating to you such as name, contact details, contact preferences. It does not include data from which you can no longer be identified such as anonymous aggregate data.

Depending on your relationship with Clearwater International, the information maintained may include employment history, education information and other information as well as contact information. It may also include a record of our contact history with you and comments, views or references from third parties.

This data is stored in secure, proprietary and confidential databases which are accessible only by members of the Clearwater International team.

What information do we collect from you?

We will collect and process the following data about you:

  • Information you give us. This is information about you that you give us by filling in forms on our site or by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise. The information you give us may include your name, job title, address, email address and phone number and financial information.
  • Information we collect from your use of our site. With regard to each of your visits to our site we will automatically collect the following information: Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your device to the Internet, whereabouts you connected to our service, your internet service provider (ISP), and what type of device you are using to access our service.
  • Information we collect throughout our relationship. This is information relating to you, your role, your employment history, your personal interests and service usage data.
  • Information we collect when you call us. If you call us we will automatically collect the following information: the phone number used to call us
  • Information we receive from other sources. We carry out targeted research into companies which may benefit from our services and updates, based on specific sector and financial criteria. We will look to contact decision makers at these companies using personal data (including name, job title, contact details, employment history) gathered from publicly accessible sources such as search engines or websites. We do not undertake automated decision-making and do not intend to do so in future.
  • Providing us with your details online. This is information you may choose to provide us with using the contact forms on our site. It includes your name, address, telephone number, email address and preferences for receiving emails from us. Please let us know if any of this information changes so we can keep our records up to date.

Why do we collect this information?

We process your personal information for the following reasons:

  • In accordance with a contract in order to:
    • process information at your request to take steps to enter into a contract;
    • provide you with our services;
    • process payments;
    • maintain business and service continuity;
    • send service communications so that you receive a full and functional service and so we can perform our obligations to you. These may be sent by email or post or, if the circumstances require it, we may contact you by phone. These will include notifications about changes to our service.

Failure to provide such personal data may lead to the above actions being delayed or may mean that we cannot provide our services.

Legitimate interest

Clearwater International has a legitimate interest in marketing our services to existing and potential clients and business contacts. Through our communications we provide information on M&A / debt funding opportunities and market trends.

In our legitimate interests of providing the best service and improving and growing our business we will process information in order to:

  • provide you with a personalised service;
  • provide you with information on market trends and opportunities;
  • improve our services;
  • keep our site and systems safe and secure;
  • understand our customer base and purchasing trends;
  • update and enhance client records;
  • defend against or exercise legal claims and investigate complaints; and
  • understand the effectiveness of our marketing.

We will carry out analytics to improve our services as set out above.

You have the right to object to processing carried out for our legitimate interests. See the What are your rights? section below for more information.

To comply with legal requirements relating to:

  • the provision of services;
  • data protection;
  • health and safety;
  • anti-money laundering;
  • fraud investigations;
  • assisting law enforcement; and
  • any other legal obligations placed on us from time to time.

How long do we keep hold of your information?

We will keep information about you for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected unless obligations to our regulators require otherwise or we are required to remove such data from our records. A copy of our data retention schedule can be provided upon request.

Who might we share your information with?

For the purposes set out in the ‘Why do we collect this information?’ section above, we will share your personal information with:

  • the following categories of third parties, some of whom we appoint to provide services, including:
    • business partners, subsidiaries, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with you;
    • analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site;
    • e-mail marketing platforms that assist us in sending electronic communications;
    • hosting services and content management systems that enable us to provide information through our website;
    • customer survey providers in order to receive feedback and improve our services.
  • Any member of our group, which means our member entities.

Additionally, we may disclose your personal information to a relevant third party:

  • In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
  • If we are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us about our customers will be one of the transferred assets.
  • If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our clients, our regulator, or others. (This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and prevention of money laundering and credit risk reduction).

We will not lend or sell your information to third parties.

How is your data stored and kept secure?

At Clearwater International, we take your safety and security very seriously and we are committed to protecting your personal and financial information. All information kept by us is stored on secure servers. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password that enables you to access certain parts of our service, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

We may share your personal information with our service providers and this may involve transferring it to countries outside the UK, or with our overseas affiliate in China, whose data protection laws may not be as extensive as those which apply to us. Where we do so, we will ensure that we do this in accordance with the Acts and take appropriate measures to ensure that the level of protection which applies to your personal information processed in these countries is similar to that which applies within the UK. Such measures may include only transferring your data to jurisdictions in respect of which there is a European Commission adequacy decision or, where this is not the case, by using model clauses which have been approved by the European Commission.

We use our best efforts to ensure that data is accurate, complete, current and reliable for its intended use. We use appropriate technical and organisational measures and safeguards to help protect your personal data from unauthorised access, misuse, alteration or loss. Our internal policies and procedures are designed to help ensure we safeguard the privacy and accuracy of all data we collect or process. To the extent that we disclose personal data to clients or third parties, we will request that they properly protect the security and confidentiality of such information and otherwise process such data in accordance with applicable law.

What are your rights?

You have the following rights. You can exercise these rights at any time by contacting us at Clearwater International, 6th Floor, 9 Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2BJ or [email protected]. You have the right:

  • to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will inform you if we intend to use your data for such purposes;
  • to ask us not to process your personal data where it is processed on the basis of legitimate interests provided that there are no compelling reasons for that processing;
  • to ask us not to process your personal data for scientific or historical research purposes, where relevant, unless the processing is necessary in the public interest;
  • to request from us access to personal information held about you;
  • to ask for the information we hold about you to be rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete;
  • to ask for data to be erased provided that the personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, you exercise your right to object, set out below, and there are no overriding legitimate ground for processing, the data is unlawfully processed, the data needs to be erased to comply with a legal obligation. When asked to remove a record from our database, Clearwater International will retain minimal information to ensure we do not contact you or collect such information again in future;
  • to ask for the processing of that information to be restricted if the accuracy of that data is contested, the processing is unlawful, the personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected or you exercise your right to object (pending verification of whether there are legitimate grounds for processing);
  • to ask for data portability if the processing is carried out by automated means and the legal basis for processing is consent or contract.

Should you have any issues, concerns or problems in relation to your data, or wish to notify us of data which is inaccurate, please let us know by contacting us at [email protected]. In the event that you are not satisfied with our processing of your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the relevant supervisory authority listed here:

Changes to our privacy statement

This statement may be updated from time to time. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy statement.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file that is downloaded onto ‘terminal equipment’ (e.g.: a computer or smartphone) when the user accesses a website. It allows the website to recognise that user’s device and store some information about the user’s preferences or past actions.

We use cookies and similar technology to distinguish you from other users of our site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you use our site and also allows us to improve our site. We do not intend to use cookies to identify individuals or store personal information.

We use the following cookies for the following purposes:

Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website.

Analytical/performance cookies. They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you and remember your preferences.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

Cookie name

Type

Purpose

Expires

_utma, _utmb, _utmc, _utmz

Analytical / performance of site

To collect information about how many people use our site, which pages they visit and how long they spend on each page. Clearwater International then produces reports and looks for ways to improve our site (for example, revising content or improving user journeys.)

_utma: persistent

_utmb: end of session

_utmc: 30 minutes after end of session

_utmz: 6 months

Cuvid

Web Analytics

Typically written to the browser upon the first visit to the site from that web browser. This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to the site and it is updated with each page view. Additionally, this cookie is provided with a unique ID that the application uses to ensure both the validity and accessibility of the cookie as an extra security measure.

2 years from set date

cusid

Web Analytics

This cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with the site

30 mins from set date

cuvon

Web Analytics

Used to signal the last time a visitor viewed a page

30 mins from set date


You can block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

If you view our site on another browser or using another device – or delete cookies on your computer – you may have to reset your preferences.

Contact us

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy statement are welcomed and should be addressed to Clearwater International, 6th Floor, 9 Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2BJ [email protected].