Home / News / Australian Ethical plugs into Charles River

Australian Ethical plugs into Charles River

Having handed its custody to State Street, Australian Ethical has selected the Charles River Investment Management Solution to automate its front and middle office processes for its entire investment portfolio.
News

Australian Ethical will use the Charles River Investment Management Solution (IMS) to automate front and middle office processes for its entire investment portfolio across risk management, trading, compliance, performance measurement and attribution, IBOR and transaction management.

Owned by State Street, Charles River and its IMS are used by 325 clients globally, managing more than US$59 trillion in assets. As part of the deal, Australian Ethical will also become the latest of State Street’s clients in the region to deploy Alpha, its front-to-back asset servicing platform, to manage its investment data.

“We are pleased to be implementing Charles River in our front and middle office which will complement our move to State Street back office investment administration,” said Australian Ethical CFO Mark Simons.

  • “We see Charles River and State Street Alpha as a critical step in maturing our investment management platform end-to-end. Having seamless data management and connectivity across our portfolios will provide significant operational efficiencies and reduce risk as we continue to grow.”

    The mandate follows Australian Ethical’s appointment of State Street as its custodian in a move it hopes will “deliver future cost savings and enhancements to our super and investment platforms”. Australian Ethical also recently consolidated its administration services from Mercer and Link to upstart provider Grow Inc.

    “The mandate further demonstrates that State Street Alpha provides value to asset managers and owners of varying complexity and scale, who are looking to streamline their investment process to deliver efficiencies and insights across their investment operations, from portfolio construction to custody,” said State Street country head Tim Helyar.

    It’s a nice win for State Street that comes hot on the heels of its appointment as custodian and administrator for the $127 billion Challenger, from which it also expects to take on 100 employees from Artega – a cloud-based front-to-back investment operations platform Challenger majority owns – in an influx of expertise that will boost State Street’s Alpha-focused business strategy in Australia.

    “It complements our strategy,” Helyar told ISN in September. “We get to move the business on to our Alpha platform and we get access to a hundred people that enable the execution. We can take carriage of that business and hit the ground running. Our number one priority is to make sure that we continue to service our existing clients in a seamless fashion, but at the same time, if we’ve got an opportunity to grow in an inorganic way – there’s not too many opportunities like that out there in the market.”

    Lachlan Maddock

    Lachlan is editor of Investor Strategy News and has extensive experience covering institutional investment.




    Print Article

    Related
    Fidelity looks to niche assets, new clients for diversification

    The race to the bottom on low cost, benchmark aware solutions for a post-YFYS world has pretty much been run. But while the perception of value currently sits on price, that might not be where it ends up, according to Fidelity’s Simon Glazier.

    Lachlan Maddock | 5th Feb 2025 | More
    Nest buys into IFM to fulfill private market ambitions

    UK pension giant Nest will soon join a roster of industry super fund shareholders as it takes a 10 per cent stake in IFM Investors and looks to grow its private market allocations.

    Lachlan Maddock | 5th Feb 2025 | More
    Time to put an end to tribalism in super: FSC

    There are fewer super funds, and associations that represent them, than ever before. But multiple layers of industry representation working at cross-purposes means that true unity has remained elusive, according to the Financial Services Council.

    Lachlan Maddock | 31st Jan 2025 | More
    Popular