Apex Fund Services will expand into Australia following the acquisition of Lazorne Fund Administration Services from Lazorne Group Pty Ltd.
Apex will open an office in Melbourne during the second half of this year, which will focus on administration for superannuation funds. The administrator says it plans to grow its Australian office to 100 people within 5 years.
Under the terms of the acquisition, Apex will begin providing fund administration services to Lazorne’s existing investment managers and at the same time start offering Apex’s real-time middle-office service, emerging manager platforms and other fund administration services to the Australian market.
Australia’s fund management industry has approximately AU$1.7 trillion assets under management (AuM), according to figures provided by the administrator.
Apex is totally committed to working alongside its clients in their own location, and we have already begun introducing our range of fund administration and middle office services to Australian asset managers, says Peter Hughes, Group Managing Director, Apex Fund Services. Australian-based asset managers have good performance, but have only recently begun to aggressively market themselves to attract global capital. Through the Apex Global Network we provide Australias asset managers with seamless access to the world’s financial centers and we are seeing exciting synergies with our offices in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai and further afield.
Anthony D’Silva, managing director of Apex China, also will have responsibility for the Australian offices.
“Bringing together Lazorne’s local knowledge with Apex’s international expertise will create a powerful force in the Australian fund industry, DSilva says. By combining the fund administration activities of the two companies, Apex will be targeting both the large, established funds as well as the emerging managers.”
(CG)