IS contract boosts Maitland’s AUA to R750 bn

Maitland COO Veit Schuhen

Investment Solutions, South Africa’s largest multi-manager with more than R150 bn under management, has outsourced the administration on its underlying investment manager portfolios to Maitland. The deal boosts Maitland’s assets under administration to over R750 bn and ranks the group’s fund administration business among the larger international players.

Maitland has experienced rapid growth in line with the trend to administration outsourcing in the South African fund management industry and growing acceptance of South Africa as an offshore fund servicing location. The company has more than doubled assets under administration over the past three years and international fund managers now account for nearly half of its client base.

Maitland COO Veit Schuhen believes that sustained market volatility together with an increasingly demanding regulatory environment will continue to favour third party administrators. “The demand for transparency and demonstrably effective risk management processes will require ongoing and substantial investment in systems. These costs will make it increasingly difficult to justify the costs of keeping administration in-house,” he said.

Investment Solutions COO Steve Price said the decision to outsource manager portfolio administration arose from a strategic review of the business. It was informed by the need for access to accurate and current investment data and the need to focus on the core business.

Mr Price said: “Maitland’s systems will allow us faster access to data, enhancing our ability to manage valuations, risk, accounting and compliance across all our multi-manager portfolios. While we could have implemented similar systems ourselves, our business and expertise lie in devising investment strategies and selecting investment managers to implement them. Administration is absolutely critical to our business. It therefore makes sense for us to concentrate on those parts of administration which differentiate us from our competitors and add value to our clients while outsourcing those areas where we feel specialist companies such as Maitland can provide an exceptional and efficient service”