Auckland-based investment administration firm MMC has seen its business grow by more than 50 per cent in the last six months, according to the company’s latest newsletter.
The MMC newsletter says the growth was fuelled by strong market returns, “inspiring” inflows into client products and the sign-up of a new manager – the $3 billion plus Milford Asset Management.
“As at 31 March 2015, MMC has 27 clients with funds under administration [FUA] of over $22.1 billion,” the newsletter says. “We’re calculating 210 unit prices each day and have 34 staff members.”
Robert Moss, MMC managing director, said the company’s growth has been extraordinary since launching a decade ago. “We started with zero in 2005,” Moss said.
He said while MMC started by supporting boutique funds management firms that “no other administrator was really interested in” it now boasts a diversified client list, including marquee names like Westpac/BT and BNZ.
Moss said the administration provider market has also grown on the back of the portfolio investment entity (PIE) tax regime and the introduction of KiwiSaver, which launched two years after MMC launched. For example, Westpac/BT has over $3 billion in its scheme while the fast-growing BNZ KiwiSaver recently ticked over $530 million.
Moss said the combination of strong investment administration staff and a savvy technology team, with on-the-ground knowledge about local conditions, helped MMC build its reputation in New Zealand’s funds management industry.
“We have built some really smart technology,” he said. “And we understand the investment environment here. For example, the investment tax regime in New Zealand is unique in the world – in fact it’s one of the purist models of taxation anywhere.”
MMC has upgraded its underlying systems, with all clients now operating on the NeXus platform.
“With our transitions to NeXus all completed, MMC’s old fund accounting and unit pricing systems and technology have been recently retired,” the newsletter says.
As well, the company just hired former Sovereign/ASB head of unit pricing and investment reporting, Leigh Ryland, as compliance and risk manager.
Moss said as the managed investment scheme (MIS) licensing regime sets in compliance would increase in importance.
He said while MMC is not required to be licensed under the Financial Markets Conduct Act, as an outsourced provider it must meet the same standards as the underlying fund managers.
According to Moss, MMC intends to focus on back-office fund administration rather than branching out into retail client-oriented investment platforms.
“At MMC we are passionate about investment administration – it’s our core business,” he said