JP Morgan Hedge Fund Services: Best North American Hedge Fund Administrator

Its follow-the-sun business model and robust technology ensure that managers have the full support they need for all aspects of hedge fund administration. In addition, its first-class team of professionals, who understand complex strategies, service client needs in a diligent and efficient manner.

 

HFS supports more than 100 clients and 420 funds, equating to more than USD112bn in assets under administration. Over the past year, HFS enjoyed significant growth and continued to make strides in the marketplace.

 

Elliott Brown (pictured), global product executive at JP Morgan WSS, says: “Within North America, assets under administration for HFS have grown by 116 per cent, and our number of funds has increased by 28 per cent. We’ve also increased our number of relationships in North America by 33 per cent over the same period.”

 

Straight-through processing support allows HFS to handle a wide range of fund administration issues across middle- and back-office functions. Back-office capabilities include fund valuation, independent pricing, financial reporting and multi-jurisdictional tax services. Middle office capabilities include trade operations, reconciliation, OTC derivatives processing and portfolio accounting.

 

Says Brown, “One of the key challenges in the hedge fund market is being able to service alternatives clients holistically, and our platform allows for this irrespective of fund structure and/or strategy. JP Morgan’s strong commitment to premier technology and our experienced professionals enable us to meet this challenge.” Another key challenge is keeping pace with ongoing regulatory changes, and JP Morgan is well placed to help managers meet this ongoing demand.

 

Highlighting the commitment of HFS to technology, Brown says a new interactive portal, Alternative Investment Reporting, is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of this year. This new technology will enable alternative asset managers across hedge fund, real estate and private equity strategies to view, analyse and extract data from dashboards, workflow tools and reports. It will be the latest addition to JP Morgan ACCESS, the firm’s online platform for client-facing applications.

 

In addition to facilitating the consolidation of data and generation of reports across hedge fund strategies via a single reporting platform, the portal will also include a comprehensive workflow module, allowing clients to monitor the progress of key operational processes.

 

Technology aside, it is the JP Morgan blue-chip brand, a fortress balance sheet, cutting-edge product and commitment to top people that help keep HFS one step ahead of the competition.

 

Brown says of being named Best North American Hedge Fund Administrator: “We are very honoured to have been recognised by Hedgeweek for the second year in a row, as it reflects our continued investment in talent and innovative client-facing technology.”