Wellington-based investment platform, Adminis, has hit almost $6 billion in funds under administration (FUA) after a COVID-era growth spurt.
Adminis chief, Matan Gan-El, said the business had grown rapidly over the last couple of years with rising interest from advisory firms and high net worth investors, in particular.
“We’ve been inundated with requests both from potential new customers and existing clients who want extra services,” Gan-El said.
In the wake of the March 2020 COVID-linked crash, he said the surprise markets boom had spilled over into increased demand for innovative administration solutions as investors sought new investment opportunities.
“Adminis was set up to handle a wide range of assets including funds, direct securities, property and collectibles,” Gan-El said. “We enable clients to see their entire portfolio in one place and to implement any changes they want to make.”
Currently, the firm has 34 clients including funds, high net worth investors, family offices and the direct-to-consumer platform, InvestNow.
“We also support a number of fintech start-ups,” he said.
Adminis spun out of Crema Capital – a private wealth firm associated with investors in the Kiwi tech trio of TradeMe, Xero and FNZ – in 2013 before launching more publicly in 2016.
In 2016 the platform added custody, appointing BNP Paribas Securities Services as sub-custodian.
Over the last five years the Adminis FUA has grown more than five-fold, finding a niche in a broader administration market dominated by other back-office specialists like MMC, Trustees Executors, BNP Paribas and Link and investment platforms FNZ and Aegis. Another long-time local admin firm, Appello, has also carved out a clientbase, counting KiwiSaver scheme, Always Ethical (previously known as Amanah) and property fund manager PMG as customers, for example.
But the NZ investment administration sector has evolved considerably since 2016 during a period that has seen some turnover of registry (and other fund services) contracts as well as the emergence of the NZX-owned Wealth Technologies (now holding about $8 billion of FUA) platform and the MMC buy-out of Aegis late in 2019.
In the direct-to-consumer market, services like Sharesies, Hatch (now owned by FNZ) and InvestNow (which appointed Adminis for most back-office services) has further diversified the mix.
But Gan-El said there is still plenty of space in the NZ market for further growth.
He said Adminis, which has about 50 staff, was investing into new technology and capabilities in line with investor expectations.
While the platform provides access to over 60 markets and “most asset classes”, Gan-El said cryptocurrencies remain off the menu for now – at least in a custodial sense.
“We’re looking at cryptocurrencies – it’s an asset class you can’t ignore,” he said. “But we can’t provide custody for crypto-assets yet – there’s still a problem around how to hold cryptocurrencies safely on behalf of investors.”
Former Kiwibank chief, Sam Knowles, serves as independent chair of the Adminis board.