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Horseshoe Fund Services Ltd
Horseshoe is among the smaller providers rated in the survey,
administering $3 billion in committed capital for PE clients. It
counts 10 PE fund manager clients in North America, one in
Europe and one based elsewhere- ranging in size of committed
capital to up to $1 billion. Services are provided out of Charlotte,
NC, and Hamilton, Bermuda. It describes the latter as growing
rapidly with proximity to a large number of private equity fund
launches.
Over the past two years, the firm has enhanced its investor
reporting to meet the increasing demands of ILPA reporting
requirements, as well as additional client and investor reporting
needs around portfolio transparency.
Horseshoe’s entry into the survey has been quite spectacular
in terms of scores, though a small response sample suggests that
caution should be applied in drawing bold conclusions. Never-
theless, its overall score is 6.84, making it one of the top-rated
PE administrators in the eyes of its participating clients. The
firm recorded a perfect score of 7.00 for both Fund Establishing
and Structuring and Investment Execution. All other scores are
at least above 6.73.
Not surprisingly, comments from clients are overwhelmingly
positive. ‘Responsive’, ‘proactive’, and ‘efficient’ are frequently
used.
SCORES BY CATEGORY
Category Average
Score North
America Europe Asia Rest of
World
Client Service and Relationship
Management 6.85 6.80 0.00 0.00 7.00
Value Delivered 6.80 6.74 0.00 0.00 7.00
Fund Establishing and Structuring 7.00 7.00 0.00 0.00 n/a
Capital Drawdowns 6.98 6.97 0.00 0.00 7.00
Investment Execution 7.00 7.00 0.00 0.00 7.00
Accounting and Reporting To
Limited Partners/Investors 6.83 6.78 0.00 0.00 7.00
Accounting and Reporting To
General Partners 6.76 6.70 0.00 0.00 7.00
Compliance support 6.73 6.64 0.00 0.00 7.00
Reporting 6.76 6.67 0.00 0.00 7.00
Regulatory Reporting 6.82 6.80 0.00 0.00 7.00
Technology 6.76 6.72 0.00 0.00 7.00
Category Average
Score North
America Europe Asia Rest of
World
Client Service and Relationship
Management 6.34 0.00 6.34 0.00 0.00
Value Delivered 6.00 0.00 6.00 0.00 0.00
Fund Establishing and Structuring n/a 0.00 n/a 0.00 0.00
Capital Drawdowns 5.67 0.00 5.67 0.00 0.00
Investment Execution 6.00 0.00 6.00 0.00 0.00
Accounting and Reporting To
Limited Partners/Investors 5.55 0.00 5.55 0.00 0.00
Accounting and Reporting To
General Partners 6.00 0.00 6.00 0.00 0.00
Compliance Support 5.50 0.00 5.50 0.00 0.00
Reporting 5.91 0.00 5.91 0.00 0.00
Regulatory Reporting 7.00 0.00 7.00 0.00 0.00
Technology 5.67 0.00 5.67 0.00 0.00
Northern Trust
Northern Trust administers some $72 billion in committed capital
on behalf of private equity funds, funds of private equity funds
and other fund managers pursuing private equity fund strategies.
The bulk of its PE fund admin business involves clients headquar-
tered in Europe (80%), with 20% based in North America. It de-
scribes its business as primarily offshore with both fund managers
and asset owners (investors) as direct clients.
Services are provided out of physical offices in Guernsey, Ire-
land, USA, Luxembourg, Nordics, Netherlands, Singapore and
Hong Kong. Of these, the USA is currently the fastest growing
with a notable trend among large PE firms to outsource admin-
istration. The bank has, however, established processing support
centres in Ireland and India to support anticipated growth in
the EMEA and APAC regions.
Northern Trust continues to streamline process flows and,
in March 2017, undertook the first commercial deployment of
distributed ledger technology in the private equity industry, as a
step in this process.
In the survey itself, Northern Trust received insufficient
responses for any firm conclusions to be drawn. All category
scores were, however, in the Good and Very Good ranges with a
top score for Regulatory Reporting.
SCORES BY CATEGORY
The Private Equity Issue 2017
globalcustodian.com
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