New findings from the 25th edition of Monterey Insight’s Guernsey Fund Report reveal the market shares of all service providers in Guernsey’s funds sector.
Fund assets serviced in Guernsey increased to $412bn at the end of June 2019, up 3.2% compared with 2018. The number of serviced schemes stood at 1,065 and the total number of sub-funds reached 1,289 – slightly down on 2018, when there were 1,077 and 1,363 respectively.
For fund administration services across domiciled and non-domiciled funds, as has been the case for a number of years, Northern Trust remains the largest by total net assets ($65bn) and by number of sub-funds (185).
Aztec Group rose from fourth position in 2018 to second this year, with $50.7bn of assets, followed by Apex Fund Services in third with $44.2bn.
Northern Trust also maintains its lead position for custody and transfer agency services respectively, with $25.7bn and $56.6bn. BNP Paribas Securities Services held second place in the custody table of serviced funds with $10.7bn, ahead of Kleinwort Hambros with $6.4bn.
Among the transfer agents, Apex Fund Services maintains second position with $44.2bn and Aztec Group Partners climbs to third position with a total of $43.9bn.
Auditor rankings
The ranking for auditors was unchanged this year, as has been the case for several years. PwC maintains top position, auditing 355 funds and sub-funds, ahead of KPMG with 261 funds and sub-funds, and EY in third with 131.
The positions in the ranking table are reversed for auditors ranking by assets – KPMG leads with $132.9bn, followed by PwC with $111bn and Deloitte in third with $61bn.
Among legal advisers, the ranking remains the same as last year. Carey Olsen held its lead, offering legal advice to 798 funds, followed by Mourant with 157 funds and Ogier in third with 59. On the market share ranking of assets, Carey Olsen also took the top spot with $307bn, ahead of Mourant.
Among fund managers, the largest promoter/initiator of funds serviced in Guernsey was Apax Partners, with $37.2bn. Cinven climbed to second with $26.3bn, followed by Permira with $19.9bn.
Newly launched funds
Although overall the number of groups and funds slightly decreased, 94 funds and sub-funds domiciled in Guernsey were launched during the year, accounting for $26.3bn in assets. Of these products, 49 sub-funds were private equity/venture capital, with a total net asset of $17.3bn, representing 65.8% in assets of the newly launched product.
Overall (for domiciled and non-domiciled funds), the most popular product remained private equities funds, accounting for $242.3bn, followed by infrastructure funds with $43.5bn. This brings the total for private equity schemes (including infrastructure) to $285.8bn – a 10.3% increase on 2018.
Karine Pacary, Managing Director of Monterey Insight, commented: “Guernsey demonstrated strong returns during the last year and managed to once again attract major players to launch their private equity funds.
"We also notice a strong increase of infrastructure schemes, which has been the trend for a few years now. By taking a closer look at the results, we can see that those positive results were of benefit to a select group of service providers. In an overall context, the Guernsey fund industry has strengthened.”