SEI is one of the larger administrators to 100 alternative investment managers that outsource back-office and fund administration to the tech company, providing dashboards to alternative investment managers.
Altogether, the business has $1.5tn in assets under administration, management or advice — $444bn is AUM and $983bn is under administration. SEI has about 5,000 employees globally, with 300 in London. It recently bought Altigo, a tech business that will help it provide alternative asset solutions.
SEI has a master trust presence in the UK, with SEI Master Trust, through which it also owns the National Pensions Trust and the Atlas Master Trust, as this is a growth sector, and Hicke sees consolidation in this space.
But in the UK, Hicke also has a keen eye on the re-platforming needed by independent financial adviser companies also consolidating, often with the backing of private equity firms — a world he is familiar with.
“Let’s say consolidator A has bought 20 firms and those 20 firms are on nine different platforms and in 20 different investment propositions and have 20 different client processes. We work with those organisations to harmonise and streamline all of those areas,” he says.
“SEI is one of the better organisations at technology migrations and re-platforming. We’ve been [re-platforming] for years; the SEI business has a lot of capabilities and experience in harmonising data and making sure the migration of data is happening.”
One of the issues that often gets missed is third-party data. SEI can integrate third-party applications through APIs where required and also has its own proprietary applications.
There has also been the technology issue in merging a lot of adviser companies. “There was originally more of a consolidation arbitrage strategy of saying: ‘We’re going to roll up a number of large [businesses] and through size create opportunities and leverage'," Hicke says.
“But in a lot of these cases the consolidators were not requiring a change to that firm’s investment solution. That has changed in the past 24 months. [They realised that] as they get larger and larger the best way to scale is to have a common process in place.
“There is a demand for a modern, end-to-end wealth management experience and a need for a holistic view of data, so it’s critical for firms to align their investment process and have a unified infrastructure in place. There’s going to be significant growth in the investment adviser space — advisers are going to lean more into technology to serve clients and that’s going to grow.”
