SS&C Technologies services four of the world's top 10 managed account platforms, providing a critical administration function in the MAP space. The firm has continued to grow the number of clients (both MAPs and individual fund managers) in 2015 and as Tom Kirkpatrick (pictured), European COO at SS&C GlobeOp, observes, hedge fund managers are taking on more managed account mandates.
"For some of our larger clients, we've seen investors writing sizeable investment tickets for managed accounts. We support managers mostly on the middle office side of things, as sometimes the investor will have their own preferred administrator. We are still able to help managers with operating scale; being able to split trades, making sure the correct controls are in place for each of the legal entities. We help managers maintain operational control of their managed account mandates on a daily basis," says Kirkpatrick.
According to Colin Keane, Ireland Country Head at SS&C GlobeOp, this has been one of the reasons for SS&C's success in Luxembourg and Ireland.
"European Umbrella structures inherently have a Sub-Fund infrastructure so we've been able to apply the same operational structure that we use for existing offshore managed accounts to regulated products availing of the QIAIF, SIF or UCITS frameworks," says Keane, adding that one interesting growth dynamic this year has been the emergence of multi-strategy products as MAPs look to help investors overcome regulatory limitations such as concentration limits under UCITS IV.
"Managers who have a number of separate strategy Sub-Funds across their platform are leveraging off the existing Fund returns and combining these strategies into one multi strategy Sub-Fund, creating a new product offering for their investors."
As more investors turn to managed account vehicles to improve the way they access hedge fund strategies, be it offshore or in a European regulated AIFMD or UCITS wrapper, administrators need to have technology prowess, as well as human expertise, to process fund data and publish it in the formats that their clients need on a daily basis.
"It could be an accounting report, a NAV report, a risk report, a regulatory report. Whatever the report, we believe we've got a broad range of services and the technology and human skills to deliver a market-leading administration service to managed account providers," says Kirkpatrick.
"We are continuously focused on the accuracy and transparency of our reporting to MAPs, trading advisers, as well as investors," notes Keane. The infrastructure that SS&C has with respect to its proprietary systems and software is not only important, but also "one of our key differentiators, compared to other administrators."
"Process integration is a common term in the industry, but how many administrators provide an end-to-end internal solution?" stresses Keane. "Many providers need to leverage external providers to assist with aspects of MAP reporting, be it EMIR reporting, a portfolio accounting system, right through to risk and regulatory reporting. SS&C is a market leader in these services and can offer these either as bundled or as stand-alone services. This flexibility to provide a complex product, such as Annex IV reporting, has been very valuable."
Kirkpatrick says that having expertise and the internal reporting synergies "provides our clients with a high degree of confidence, knowing their data is housed under SS&C's infrastructure". Understanding clients' needs is key, but as Keane concludes, having proprietary tools at its fingertips gives SS&C a significant advantage in delivering optimal solutions to its clients.
