Telstra Super has appointed JP Morgan Investor Services to provide master custody and investment reporting services as part of the internationalisation of its $17 billion portfolio.
The fund now has 42 per cent of its assets overseas compared with a heavy domestic bias in previous years. This has led the fund to undertake a tender and review process to find a global custodian, said Paul Curtin, chief financial officer of Telstra Super.
Prior to this National Australia Bank Asset Servicing (NAS) provided support for the fund over a “well-established and successful” 25 year period.
Curtin said JP Morgan not only demonstrated a keen understanding of the fund’s business, but was able to provide the extensive service capabilities it required.
“JP Morgan’s technology had a strong alignment with what we wanted and that really is what put us over the line. With NAS we’ve had a great relationship, but at the end of the day we prefer the technology solution we tested and experienced in our dealings with JP Morgan,” Curtin said.
On the investment side of the fund Miles Mallick, head of investment operations at Telstra Super, said the technology solutions had to deal with performance attribution and risk.
“That’s being driven by the fact we have more and more internal management, we have regulatory obligation, and the way we manage the money is making us hungry for that data,” Mallick said.
The review and tender were conducted by Dymond, Foulds & Vaughan, an independent consulting firm specialising in custody review services.
JP Morgan is expected to commence in the first half of 2016.
