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mergers such as Morgan Stanley Investment Management and Eaton Vance , Legg Mason and Franklin Templeton , while State Street Global Advisors and UBS Asset Management are also rumored to be mulling a merger ( as of the time of writing ). These deals have been driven by firms looking to open additional distribution channels , implement new or complementary investment strategies , and / or achieve size and scale as a consolidated entity . With each firm managing its own legacy platforms , it is a major task on the investment operations team to manage these systems and migrate onto a common model . According to Aberdeen Standard Investment ’ s Tumility , the firm recently completed the migration of the investment operations for public markets between Aberdeen Asset Management and Standard Life Investments – a deal that was completed almost four years ago . He says those firms that have spent time investing in their data and technology infrastructure would find it easier to consolidate and merge onto a common platform . “ The cleaner your existing investment operating platform is , the easier it would be to merge the two ,” Tumilty explains . “ When you are bringing together two organisations , you will move to the model that has the cleaner data . If it ’ s not clear which is the optimal operating model , you would have to map out an ideal set of targets and take components of each other ’ s operations platform and transition across , which will be complicated , onerous and could take longer to complete .” Against this backdrop , asset managers are undergoing far-reaching reviews of
“ The service providers ' ability to help you consolidate the data is key . They have the breadth of capabilities to cope with scale and are likely to be global in their nature which is what the joint organisation will be looking for .”
MIKE TUMILTY , GLOBAL CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER , ABERDEEN STANDARD INVESTMENTS
30 Global Custodian Spring 2021