Apex Fund Services is aiming to become a top 10 fund administrator with plans to get to $100bn in assets under administration within the next two years.
The mid-tier administrator has been looking to boost its assets and is currently scouring the market for acquisition opportunities.
The company’s aim, according to John Bohan, managing director, Europe and Middle East at Apex Fund Services, is to get over $100bn within the next two years, pushing it into the top 10 of global administrators.
“There is pressure to grow in the right direction as a business for us,” he says. “We have been growing for 13 years and are now in the top 20. To move into the top 10 in the next 18 months would be a big achievement and that is the direction we are looking to go.”
Despite the coagulation of hedge fund assets to the largest players, Bohan feels there is still room for mid-tier hedge fund administrators to grow. While there may be 80% to 90% of the assets with the top 10% of managers the remaining assets are widely spread out across mid-tier sub $1bn funds.
“Larger administrators are only taking on larger clients—those over $1bn,” he says. “This leaves the mid-tier market for mid-tier administrators. So there’s a scramble to absorb that.”
Apex has been looking at administrators where senior management have scaled the business over 30 odd years and may be exiting the market now or, in other cases, previous M&A deals which have not worked out. Bohan points out that there are over 50 regulated administrators in Dublin alone and probably 100 plus in the US “so it’s a diverse market and has choice.”
This extract was taken from the feature ‘Fund administrators racing to become bigger machines’ in Global Custodian’s forthcoming hedge fund issue, OUT IN MID-AUGUST.