Australian Ethical will use the Charles River Investment Management Solution (IMS) to automate front and middle office processes for its entire investment portfolio across risk management, trading, compliance, performance measurement and attribution, IBOR and transaction management.
Owned by State Street, Charles River and its IMS are used by 325 clients globally, managing more than US$59 trillion in assets. As part of the deal, Australian Ethical will also become the latest of State Street’s clients in the region to deploy Alpha, its front-to-back asset servicing platform, to manage its investment data.
“We are pleased to be implementing Charles River in our front and middle office which will complement our move to State Street back office investment administration,” said Australian Ethical CFO Mark Simons.
“We see Charles River and State Street Alpha as a critical step in maturing our investment management platform end-to-end. Having seamless data management and connectivity across our portfolios will provide significant operational efficiencies and reduce risk as we continue to grow.”
The ASX-listed Australian Ethical, which has some following in NZ, reported almost A$13 billion under management as at the end of September. In May this year, the firm bought sustainable bond manager, Altius, from Australian Unity, boosting funds under management by about A$2 billion.
The Charles River mandate follows Australian Ethical’s appointment of State Street as its custodian in a move it hopes will “deliver future cost savings and enhancements to our super and investment platforms”. Australian Ethical also recently consolidated its administration services from Mercer and Link to upstart provider Grow Inc.
“The mandate further demonstrates that State Street Alpha provides value to asset managers and owners of varying complexity and scale, who are looking to streamline their investment process to deliver efficiencies and insights across their investment operations, from portfolio construction to custody,” said State Street country head Tim Helyar.
It’s a nice win for State Street that comes hot on the heels of its appointment as custodian and administrator for the $127 billion Challenger, from which it also expects to take on 100 employees from Artega – a cloud-based front-to-back investment operations platform Challenger majority owns – in an influx of expertise that will boost State Street’s Alpha-focused business strategy in Australasia.
Lachlan Maddock is editor Investor Strategy News (Australia)