From the outset Admiral Administration has offered a high quality, tailored service to our clients, which we strongly believe is what makes us different – evidenced by what our clients say about us
From the outset Admiral Administration has offered a high quality, tailored service to our clients, which we strongly believe is what makes us different – evidenced by what our clients say about us.
For the second year in a row, Admiral was ranked by Institutional Investor’s Alpha Magazine annual Hedge Funds Top Service Providers survey. This year, managers with less than USD1bn in assets ranked Admiral number three in service excellence among such industry leaders as Goldman Sachs and Citco Fund Services.
When we started out 11 years ago, we mainly attracted smaller managers with funds of around USD10mn. Over the years, our successful model has allowed us to grow and evolve with the growing hedge fund market and the growth of our clients.
Five years ago we were a USD4bn group. Now we have more than 300 funds and USD40bn under administration. Growth in funds meant growth in staff numbers; we now employ over 90 people in Cayman and our new office in Dublin, 55 of whom are qualified accountants. We are also expanding geographically. Admiral is in the process of opening a US office and in 2008 we will be looking at opportunities in Asia.
At Admiral, we believe that growth in this increasingly complex market means commitment to investing in our people and in the technology to support them. The ability to value complex investment instruments demands highly trained staff, and as instruments evolve, our employee training also needs to be refreshed and updated.
People are our biggest focus, and we recognise that developing and retaining our staff is key to our future success. With the talent war alive and well, we recognize the need to retain the talent we have, as well as attract new talent to facilitate our growth. We believe that working in a fast-growing, dynamic group like Admiral, with the opportunities it brings for ongoing training and development, affords a high degree of motivation. Our success in this area has manifested itself in very low staff turnover, well below the industry norms.
We firmly believe that technology is the key to scaleability. As managers and investors demand more from administrators, the right technology is the essential component that enables our highly-skilled front-line staff to meet those needs.
Admiral is committed to investing in technology – we employ Advent Geneva, coupled with state-of-the-art in-house proprietary registrar and transfer agency and web-based reporting software that enables us to provide a truly customised service for our clients.
In many ways, it is the little things that have enabled Admiral to evolve and grow with the hedge fund market. Anyone can get the basics right, but our strong emphasis on our people, with the technology necessary to support them, puts us in an excellent position to partner with our clients to provide the best service possible.
Canover Watson is managing director of Admiral Administration
