Olympia Capital was founded in 1990 and its net assets under administration have grown from $650 million at inception to over $66 billion as of March 31, 2008.
Olympia Capital was founded in 1990 and its net assets under administration have grown from $650 million at inception to over $66 billion as of March 31, 2008. We are a full service administrator and service funds domiciled in key offshore and onshore jurisdictions out of our offices located in Bermuda, United States, Canada and Ireland.
We service all types of investment managers both large and small. Some of our clients are small start-ups with 3-4 employees whilst our largest client has approximately 150 employees. We offer a high quality fund administration service and strive to provide a true one-on-one service for our clients. Generally, the investment mangers we work with value the fact that they need only interact with very few individuals at Olympia. In many cases, an investment manager often speaks to just two individuals: one for NAV calculations and a second for shareholder services.
For start-up hedge funds, we will deal directly with the individual(s) behind the creation of the fund. For this type of manager, having very few points of contact at the fund’s administrator, and being able to build a relationship with that administrator, is a very important factor. For larger hedge fund managers employing hundreds of people, where staff turnover can be an issue that they themselves are facing, building a long-term, one-on-one relationship with an individual at their fund administrator is not so much of a burning issue.
In order to be able to provide this one-on-one service for our hedge fund managers, Olympia employs highly educated accountants who have an in-depth understanding of the products and the securities in which hedge funds invest. In Bermuda, from our staff of 28 accountants, 20 hold a professional accounting designation – the vast majority of whom are chartered accountants – meaning that they have the knowledge to converse with investment managers about their complex portfolios.
To enable relationships to be built between a hedge fund manager and an accountant, a fund administrator must maintain a low staff turnover. This is something that remains one of the top priorities for Olympia. We have found that work that is interesting and challenging is far more likely to entice an employee to stay with the company than repetitive work requiring little thought. We believe that the level of exposure that we give our staff to our clients and the fund products makes their work much more interesting and engaging. We also strongly believe in the importance of a work/life balance, where overtime is kept to a minimum outside of those occasions when it is strictly necessary.
Olympia has always been a highly regarded hedge fund administrator with an excellent reputation for its skilled and experienced people. We are in the process of ensuring that our systems operate at the same high level as our staff with the introduction of Advent’s global investment management and accounting system, Geneva, as well as their Partner system for investor accounting and servicing. The acquisition of Olympia by the CACEIS group in November 2007 will further enable us to deliver new and innovative services to our clients on a global basis.
Raymond Morrison, President, Olympia Capital (Bermuda) Limited
