Market report. Investment Management and Project Delivery. October 2022

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

Current project trends – what are we seeing

• Several super funds have been undertaking vendor selection processes for middle and front office systems, we will likely see some key announcements related to these processes soon. This has been across listed and unlisted assets

• Continued merger and acquisition programs being established with consolidation and integration projects.

• With JPMorgan’s custody business upgrading their core platform to InvestOne, this has resulted in their clients (Investment Managers & Super Funds) having to set up projects teams to accommodate these changes

• Plenty of action in the front office space (OMS/PMS) with a combination of system enhancements and new platforms

Employment market trends

• The flow of jobs has increased in the latter half of this quarter and thus has the demand for resources

• The Mercer/BT integration program is consuming a number of project resources

• Rates and salaries are hovering at the same levels as last quarter however if the current jobs trend continues, we wouldn’t be surprised if they start to trend upwards again

• A slight shift with several employers becoming a little stronger on preferring local workers over remote workers (ie interstate)

M&A Activity (recent announcements)

• Perpetual & Pendal

• Brighter Super & Suncorp Portfolio Services

• Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation and AvSuper

• Hostplus & Maritime Super

Watch this space and questions moving forward

• Two underperforming funds, EISS Super and Christian Super, have been advised to merge with better-performing funds.

• Several reports reference that Vanguards will officially launch its new superannuation business in November.

• We have noticed that there have been less announcements on the merger and acquisition front - are we finally seeing a slow down of these types of corporate events?

• With multiple reports of a recession looming, if this does eventuate how will this impact the employment market across investment projects? We have not noticed any panic or projects being cancelled at this point.

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.