Legal
Privacy policy.
About this policy
BEAM Corp Pty Ltd ("BEAM", "we", "us") is a corporate advisory firm based in Sydney. This policy explains how we collect, hold, use and disclose personal information, and how you can access or correct the information we hold about you, or make a complaint.
We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles.
Much of our work involves confidential information about businesses and transactions. We treat personal information within that work with the same care and discretion we bring to every engagement.
The personal information we collect
The information we collect depends on how you deal with us.
If you contact us or make an enquiry, including through our website, we collect your name, email address, phone number (if you give it), the service you're interested in and anything you tell us in your message.
If you are a client or prospective client, or an owner, director, executive, shareholder or family member connected with one, we may collect:
- contact details and your role in the business;
- information about the business, its ownership, finances, operations, people and plans;
- personal financial information relevant to the engagement, such as shareholdings, remuneration, and your objectives for a sale, capital raising or succession; and
- information about family and ownership arrangements, where this is relevant to generational transition or succession planning.
If you are a counterparty, investor, financier or adviser involved in a transaction, we collect business contact details and information about your organisation and your role in the transaction, together with the details of any expression of interest and other counterparty details relating to a matter we are both parties to.
When you visit our website, our hosting provider automatically records standard technical information, such as your IP address, browser type, the pages you visit and the time of your visit. We use this to keep the site secure and working. Our website does not use advertising or tracking cookies, and we do not use analytics to profile visitors.
Sensitive information. We do not generally collect sensitive information, such as health information. If a matter requires it (for example, health information relevant to succession planning), we will collect it only with your consent and only as far as the matter requires.
How we collect it
We collect personal information:
- directly from you, in meetings, by phone, by email and through our website's contact form;
- from our clients and their other advisers, such as accountants, lawyers and financial advisers, when this is part of an engagement;
- from other parties to a transaction, such as buyers, sellers, investors and their advisers; and
- from public sources, such as ASIC and ASX records, company websites and published material.
If we receive personal information we did not ask for, we will keep it only if we could have collected it for one of the purposes in this policy. Otherwise, we will destroy or de-identify it.
Dealing with us anonymously
You can make a general enquiry without identifying yourself, or by using a pseudonym. To act for you or with you on an engagement, we will need to know who you are.
Why we collect, use and disclose it
We use personal information to:
- respond to enquiries and arrange discussions;
- provide our corporate advisory services, including mergers, acquisitions and divestments, capital raisings, corporate advisory, strategy and generational transition;
- identify and evaluate potential counterparties, investors and financiers, and manage transactions, including due diligence and negotiation;
- manage our relationships with clients, counterparties and advisers;
- meet our legal and regulatory obligations, including as the holder of an Australian financial services licence; and
- run our business, including record keeping, accounting and insurance.
From time to time we may send you information about our services, events or market developments that we think will interest you. You can ask us to stop at any time by replying to the message or contacting us, and we will stop promptly.
We do not sell personal information.
Who we disclose it to
We disclose personal information only for the purposes above, and where possible under confidentiality arrangements. Depending on the matter, we may disclose it to:
- other parties to a transaction, such as potential buyers, sellers, investors and financiers, and their advisers, in line with our client's instructions;
- professional advisers, such as lawyers, accountants, auditors and valuers engaged on a matter or by us;
- service providers who support our business, including our IT support provider, Microsoft (for email and document storage) and Vercel (for website hosting). They may handle personal information only to provide their services to us;
- our insurers; and
- regulators, courts and government agencies, where required or authorised by law.
Overseas disclosure
- Transactions with overseas parties. If a transaction involves an overseas investor, buyer or financier, we may disclose personal information to them and their advisers in their country, in line with our client's instructions. These are most likely to be in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and other European countries, New Zealand, and Japan and other Asian countries.
- Our website. Our website is hosted by Vercel Inc., a US company. The pages are delivered from a global network, and Vercel may store technical information about visits (such as IP addresses) outside Australia, including in the United States. Enquiries submitted through our contact form are processed in Vercel's Sydney region and delivered to our email in Microsoft 365.
- Email and documents. We use Microsoft 365. Our Microsoft 365 data is stored in Australia.
How we protect it
We take reasonable steps to protect personal information from misuse, interference, loss, and unauthorised access, change or disclosure. These include limiting access to the people who need it, using secure cloud services with multi-factor sign-in, and requiring confidentiality from our service providers and transaction parties.
We keep personal information for as long as we need it for the purposes above, and to meet our legal obligations, including record-keeping requirements that apply to financial services licensees. We generally keep client records for 7 years after an engagement ends. When we no longer need personal information, we destroy it or de-identify it.
Automated decisions
We do not use computer programs to make decisions about individuals that could significantly affect their rights or interests.
Accessing and correcting your information
You can ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, or ask us to correct it, by contacting our Privacy Officer (details below). We will respond within 30 days. We do not charge for a request. If providing access involves significant cost, we may charge a reasonable fee, and we will tell you first.
In limited cases the law allows us to refuse access, for example where it would unreasonably affect someone else's privacy or reveal commercially sensitive information about a transaction. If we refuse access or correction, we will explain why in writing and tell you how to complain.
Complaints
If you have a concern about how we have handled your personal information, please contact our Privacy Officer first. We will acknowledge your complaint promptly and aim to respond in full within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC):
- online at www.oaic.gov.au
- by phone on 1300 363 992
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The current version is always on our website, with the date it was last updated.
Contact us
Privacy Officer, BEAM Corp Pty Ltd
Email: info@beamcorp.com.au