Quarterly market report – Investment Management and Project Delivery

This is aimed at providing a high-level snapshot of the recent market activity across project delivery in the Investment Management space across Sydney and Melbourne.

Current project trends that we are seeing

• Several Funds Managers and Super Funds are either upgrading or implementing new Order Management Systems (OMS’s) or Portfolio Management Systems (PMS’s). Some of the key vendors involved across the market include: Charles River, Blackrock Aladdin and Simcorp Dimension.

• Several businesses are currently reviewing their existing applications and operating models with a view to make transformational change across their entire eco-systems. This will likely result in further large projects.

• Continued integration and separation projects across the industry include IOOF/MLC, Resolution Life/AMP Capital, Macquarie/AMP Capital, BT/Pendal, QSuper/Sunsuper. This has driven a number of integration, migration and operating model changes.

• Ongoing custody transitions across several Investment Managers.

Employment market trends

• Very challenging to find good quality consultant/Business Analysts with relevant domain experience in the Investments world. This is also the case with Project/Program Managers but not to the same extent.

• Continued shortage of high-quality candidate due to the lack of resources coming onshore, coupled with significant project investment. Subsequently, rates and salaries have moved upwards and the turnaround time to find the right candidate is significantly longer and employers are often having to be more flexible with their requirements

Watch this space - questions moving forward

• With international flights underway again, when will we start to see more skilled resources coming back onshore or skilled visas arriving? We suspect there will be a lag here and the candidate shortage will continue for the short-medium term.

• We are hearing more and more about the ‘great resignation’. We are yet to see evidence that this is happening to the same extent as what is happening on other continents. Time will tell.

• The rhetoric is that there will be further mergers between Super Funds given APRA’s focus on merging Super Funds who aren’t performing. Is there any large M&A activity imminent?

• Can rates and salaries climb any further?

• Most people are in agreeance that working 5 days a week in the office is no longer a requirement. However with restrictions opening up recently, will the expectation around this progressively change? We have noticed a subtle shift in this already with some clients asking for employees to be in the office a minimum of 2 days a week or 5 days a fortnight.

• Is Vanguard far away from launching it's superannuation business? Reports suggest early 2022.

Hope you found this informaton helpful and if you would like to discuss any of the above or would like to have a general discussion about the market, please call Steve Ash on 0439 441 758.