MRI Software has acquired LeaseEagle, a Melbourne-based regional provider of commercial property lease management solutions for tenants in corporate, retail, healthcare and other sectors. Founded in 2005, LeaseEagle’s software is used by clients to manage over 50,000 locations across Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
The solution meets a timely need as COVID-19 rent relief amendments made to International Financial Reporting Standard IFRS-16 in 2020 may still be relevant to pandemic-affected commercial tenants in 2022, the company said. As well as ensuring complex accounting standard compliance, LeaseEagle’s advanced cloud-based software reduces the risk of missing critical lease dates and makes detailed occupancy analysis across multiple real estate assets simple. It also provides data-driven reporting for better decision making, saves time and improves accuracy with automated invoicing to significantly increase business process efficiency.
“Commercial property deals in 2021 were nearly double the value of 2020 investments amid the most extensive rewrite of property leases in history,” said David Bowie, MRI Software managing director and senior vice president (Asia Pacific). “That mix of fast growth and complex change represents very high risk, and I believe this acquisition gives MRI the right solutions and expertise to help clients measurably reduce that risk.”
The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the Australian Accounting Standards Board (AASB) and the New Zealand Accounting Standards Board (NZASB) mandated full compliance from January 1, 2019 with new lease accounting standards known as IFRS-16 globally and AASB-16 and NZ-IFRS-16 in Australia and New Zealand, respectively. Since then, far more complex lease reporting data is required across entire lease and option periods, and COVID-19 rent relief amendments first made in 2020 may continue to apply into 2022 for pandemic-affected commercial tenants.
For those companies impacted, non-compliance is simply not an option. LeaseEagle ensures clients have the reporting, analysis and data management needed to effectively maintain compliance while balancing their already demanding workload managing commercial tenants with multiple sites during such historically significant and disrupted times, the company said.
LeaseEagle is the fifth acquisition by MRI Software of proptech innovators in Australia and New Zealand in the last few years.
