The Wellington-based boutique Implemented Investment Solutions (IIS) has signed up BNP Paribas as back-office provider for two soon-to-be-released products under its new fund-hosting service.
Doug Cameron, head of BNP Paribas NZ, said the deal involved both custody and fund administration services for the new IIS funds.
“We’re very pleased with this new relationship and exciting opportunity to support IIS and the new managers,” Cameron said. “This caps off a successful 2016 which has seen our client base grow and range of solutions expand, ESG reporting is a good example of this. It also further evidences the benefits of being able to draw on our global network to provide flexible solutions to meet the needs of the growing local market.”
IIS, which to-date has offered a range of Russell Investment PIE funds to NZ investors, launched its first-of-a-kind fund-hosting service this September.
At the time, Anthony Edmonds, IIS managing director, said the aim was to emulate the third-party responsible entity (RE) model common in the Australian market.
“Managers are constantly scoping out the market here, but have subsequently decided they weren’t able to, or didn’t want to set up a NZ business and launch their own funds,” he said in September. “After hearing their frustrations at launching in NZ it occurred to us IIS already has the fund architecture and regulatory systems in place to host multiple investment managers.”
Edmonds said information about the first two IIS-hosted funds would be available early in 2017.
He declined to provide further details about the new funds but said they “lent themselves to working with a global custodian like BNP” for custody and admin.
However, Edmonds said MMC would continue to supply fund admin services for the existing range of IIS Russell products.
“MMC is doing a great job with the Russell funds,” he said. “But the fund-hosting approach means we have to work with a range of different service providers based on the specific requirements and features of each fund.”
IIS manages more than $1 billion via the Russell PIE funds.