Ian MathiesonDST International has renamed and restructured itself to become DST Global Solutions, reflecting the fact its largest custodian and funds manager clients are now global players, however Australian CEO Ian Mathieson predicts administration of super funds and platforms will be its biggest growth area in the short-term.

The rebranding as DST Global Solutions involved the creation of three new business lines – Investment Management Solutions (which houses the flagship HiPortfolio fund admin product and the recently acquired Bluedoor business covering unit registry and retail super/platform administration); Business Process Solutions (which includes its workflow software) and Customer Lifecycle Management (a stream which assists business payments and billing needs but has little presence in Australia).    

The team behind HiPortfolio,  which is used by most of the major custodians with an Australian presence except State Street and Northern Trust, will now only have a dotted-line report to Mathieson, where Australia-specific matters are concerned. The direct report for those working on HiPortfolio will now be global head of Investment Management Solutions Arun Sarwal, who joined DST last year from being chief operating officer at Scottish Widows Investment Partnership.

DST claims the restructure has also placed more emphasis on delivery and consulting services beyond the straight delivery of software.

"This is not a new chapter. This is an entirely new book in our history," according to Tom Abraham, the CEO of DST Global Solutions. "Our new strategic consulting services, combined with our technology-based solutions, position us to deliver additional value for clients."

The Bluedoor subsidiary of DST will fall into the Investment Management Solutions business however its executives will report to Rob Gould, who heads up solutions for distribution, who will in turn report to Sarwal.

Mathieson predicted that Bluedoor’s market of super/platform administration and unit registry would be the biggest growth area for the business in the next couple of years.

"I think we’ve come to the end of a cycle of funds managers considering their fund accounting needs, but in the super admin space you’ve got players out there using three or four different legacy systems, and instead of consolidating to one legacy system, we’re seeing an appetite to consider something new," he said.

Mathieson added that DST would no longer actively pursue the frontoffice solutions market, describing it as a specialist field usually demanding high levels of customisation.

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