Apex Group has announced its acquisition of IP Management Company, a South African unit trust management company.
This follows the recent acquisition of IP Fund Managers Guernsey Ltd (IPFMG), a Guernsey ManCo.
IP Management Company (IPMC) is a collaboration between established financial services businesses, which have operated unit trust funds independently for more than fifteen years. These businesses compete and promote their products independently, but co-exist in a synergistic relationship within IPMC, creating a business with depth of resources and diversification of assets under administration.
The IPMC management team brings extensive experience in collective investment scheme administration, including co-named portfolios, and foreign collective investment scheme representation.
The acquisition of IPMC further strengthens Apex Group’s ManCo offering in the South African market, adding assets under administration of ZAR22bn, across over 40 funds and ten fund managers.
Apex Group’s existing ManCo services, delivered under the FundRock brand, enable more than 1,200 funds with a total of €221 billion in assets under management in 14 countries, to streamline their operations in a cost-effective manner. Apex Group’s platform in South Africa currently employs over 1,200 people across offices in Cape Town and Johannesburg, servicing 140 clients with assets of c. ZAR 2.5trn.
The addition of IPMC is the latest in a series of strategic global acquisitions for Apex Group to further grow its ManCo offering, including the recently announced additions of the ManCo businesses of MJ Hudson in Luxembourg and Ireland, Boutique Collective Investments in South Africa and Maitland in Luxembourg.
Peter Hughes (pictured), Founder and CEO of Apex Group said: “It is great to see our expansion across South Africa. IPMC will provide white-labelled, collective investment portfolio administration to third party investment managers. The additional scale and resource are needed to continue delivering our cutting-edge solutions to our African and global clients, which navigates the complex regulatory environment and drives even more growth within the region.
“This acquisition will make us one of the largest providers in the marketplace, where we can offer a personalised, single-source solution, which includes the full suite of services required for investment managers to focus on their day to day.”
Brett Paton, Director, IP Management Company added: “With IPMC becoming part of Apex Group and FundRock in South Africa, our clients will now benefit from the efficiency of a single relationship with a global service partner delivering technology-enabled solutions across the full value chain of their business. This will enable clients to achieve further resource, time and cost efficiencies in their operations via third-party ManCo solutions supplemented with fund distribution and administration, banking, depositary and custody services, all available through one relationship.
“We are impressed by the depth and breadth of product and talent we have seen so far in Apex and excited for the opportunities that lie ahead.”
