Northern Trust has announced that its hedge fund administration unit, Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services LLC, has built significant momentum since the unit was formed by the acquisition of Omnium LLC in July 2011.
In the last seven months, Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services (NTHFS) has secured 22 client wins on four continents. Northern Trust provides comprehensive middle office and administration services including trade processing, valuation, real-time reporting, cash management, accounting, collateral management and investor servicing. Mandates include six new clients in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Our strong new business growth confirms that Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services offers distinct advantages for investment managers,” said Peter Sanchez, chief executive officer of NTHFS. “The combination of our market-leading technology and domain expertise with the global scale, asset servicing capabilities and financial strength of Northern Trust makes for a unique and compelling offering.”
Recent mandates for NTHFS include new hedge fund launches and conversions from other administrators for managers pursuing long/short equity, credit, fund of hedge fund and global macro investment strategies, as well as multi-strategy firms. New mandates also include relationships with some of the world’s leading sovereign wealth funds.
“What makes these wins particularly satisfying is that they come as a result of the collective and coordinated effort of our teams, leveraging all of Northern Trust’s capabilities around the world,” said Steven L Fradkin, president of corporate & institutional services at Northern Trust.
Northern Trust has more than US$170 billion in hedge fund assets under administration, including clients of Omnium, which was established in 2007 by Citadel LLC. Both new and existing clients say they value the innovative, technology-driven hedge fund administration services provided by NTHFS.
“We have had a very positive experience with the Omnium platform for the last 3½ years, and that has continued through the Northern Trust transition,” said Larry Kassman, chief financial officer of Encompass Capital in New York. “We selected Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services because of its robust, cutting edge technology platform which allows for virtually real time data analysis; its deep reporting capabilities; tightly integrated and well controlled middle office service; fund accounting expertise and commitment to customer service.”
Julius Wang, Managing Director of Samena Asia Managers for Samena Capital, said his firm reviewed the universe of fund administrators in Asia and performed due diligence on a short list of top candidates before selecting NTHFS as administrator of its portfolio of hedge funds.
“By a significant margin, the Northern Trust offering came out on top,” Mr. Wang said. “We ranked the robustness of the systems, processes, and most importantly the people, higher than their competitors. The quality of the overall team and people in Hong Kong gave us confidence that they could deliver top service levels for a wide range of investment strategies. We have not been disappointed.”
