Vanguard Investments is reviewing its front office operations on the heels of reviews of both its middle and back office systems.
Vanguard head of marketing Colin Bold said the index manager was doing the total review of all its technologies off the back of “quite substantial growth” in the business. Simcorp was appointed late last year to become the portfolio management system for Vanguard’s back and middle offices, with Ernst & Young assisting in the early stages of that review. Bold said the current front office system was a combination of different systems, which he declined to name but is understood to include Infocomp’s Composer. Unconfirmed reports suggest Vanguard is running a prototype version of one of the contenders for the unit registry contract, which Bold said was a “;couple of months”; from finalisation.
Future Fund chief investment officer Ben Samild said that FY24 has been a great year for alpha creation, thanks to strong returns in equities and, unusually, across multiple hedge fund strategies all at the same time. He reflected the past few years have been “a difficult time to be an asset owner and to generate positive returns for risk assets” but the Future Fund is tracking well of its long-term mandate.
Simon Hoyle and Darcy SongSeptember 4, 2024
