Client

Leading real estate developer with international ownership and large-scale project operations

Industry

Real Estate and Infrastructure

Primary goal

Third-party due diligence and risk-based partner assessment

Services

Third-party due diligence, reputation assessment, compliance reviews

Real estate organisations rely on a broad ecosystem of contractors, consultants, suppliers, intermediaries and development partners. While these relationships are critical to project delivery and growth, they can also expose businesses to compliance, reputational and integrity risks that often remain hidden beneath corporate structures and ownership arrangements.

KPMG in India supported a leading real estate developer in strengthening third-party risk management through a comprehensive due diligence programme that combined discreet intelligence, compliance screening and reputation assessments to provide a deeper understanding of counterparties before engagement.

Key highlights

Risk-based third-party due diligence framework

Beneficial ownership and control analysis

Compliance and sanctions screening

Public-record and intelligence-led assessments

Reputation and integrity reviews conducted

Multi-source risk evaluation methodology

The opportunity

The client operated in a highly interconnected ecosystem involving multiple vendors, contractors and strategic business partners.

Traditional onboarding procedures provided only limited visibility into ownership structures, historical disputes, integrity concerns and other indicators that could affect project delivery, regulatory compliance or stakeholder confidence. The organisation required a more extensive approach capable of identifying risks before entering commercial relationships. Further, limited transparency around ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO), adverse media exposure, conflict of interest indicators, and historical business conduct created challenges in evaluating potential third-party risks.

Our approach

KPMG in India conducted a risk-based third-party due diligence and discreet intelligence assessment using a combination of public records, proprietary databases, media research, litigation searches, compliance screening tools, and independent market enquiries.

In-depth public domain checks

Assessed corporate registration details, ownership structure, management profiles, regulatory records, adverse media, litigation history, and sanctions/watchlist exposure
Beneficial ownership assessment

Analysed shareholding structures and identified ultimate beneficial owners to enhance transparency around ownership and control

Integrity and reputational assessment

Evaluated potential integrity concerns, adverse publicity, regulatory issues, ethical conduct concerns, and reputational risks associated with the third party and its key principals
Discreet intelligence enquiries

Conducted independent market enquiries with relevant industry sources to obtain qualitative insights regarding the third party’s reputation, management credibility, operational reliability, business practices, and market standing

The outcome

The exercise enhanced transparency across the client’s third-party ecosystem and enabled decision-makers to identify potential concerns before contractual commitments were made.

The deeper visibility into ownership structures, reputational indicators and compliance exposures strengthened onboarding governance, improved risk awareness and supported more informed commercial decision-making. The programme also created a repeatable framework that could be applied consistently across future third-party engagements.

How we make the difference

KPMG in India combines proprietary insights, and discreet enquiries to identify potential integrity, reputation, compliance risks. and sector expertise to help organisations understand who they are really doing business with. By uncovering risks hidden within ownership structures, regulatory histories and reputation signals, we help clients make more confident business decisions while strengthening governance and trust.