LONDON/NEW YORK, 15 September 2022 – Independent fund and investment manager WCM Investment Management has cut reconciliation time by two-thirds following a tripling of its assets under management (AUM) over the last three years, thanks to the use of Gresham’s Managed Services.
WCM Investment Management uses Gresham’s Managed Services to aggregate data from more than 55 custodians as well as reconcile positions, transactions, cash and foreign currencies across 1,500 accounts and 2,500 cash buckets. The Managed Services solution for WCM includes cloud hosting, reconciliation support to identify exceptions, data aggregation, and reporting.
A desire to keep its operations team lean and efficient led the firm to begin the process of extending its partnership with Gresham in 2019 to include a managed service model. Since then, the partnership has played a vital role in enabling WCM to rapidly scale from managing $30 billion in AUM at the end of 2018 to over $107 billion by the end of 2021.
Prior to the partnership with Gresham, WCM was challenged with an infrastructure combining a portfolio management system and manual spreadsheets storing data. To overcome this challenge, WCM initially implemented Gresham’s Control for investment management and Data Services back in 2013, when the firm was managing less than $3 billion in assets.
“As our business underwent a period of significant growth, we found that the increased volume and complexity of data and reconciliations was putting more and more stress on our operations team which would have required adding headcount,” said Julianna Jones, Operations Manager for WCM Investment Management. “Thanks to Gresham’s Managed Services, we are actually predicting another 50% reduction in reconciliation time, down to 15 hours per week. This is all due to Gresham’s team always finding more ways to improve our process even as we grow and expand into new markets.”
“The operational challenges of reconciliation, data collection and validation, and the subsequent effects on reporting are well understood in the investment management industry in the face of increased market volatility and uncertainty,” added Jennifer McMackin, Senior Vice President of Data and Managed Services at Gresham Technologies. “With Gresham acting as an extension of WCM’s operations team and evolving with its business growth, it is easier for them to scale to increased volumes of business, align accounts, streamline month-end processes, and be more responsive to clients.”
About Gresham:
Gresham Technologies plc (Gresham) is a global leader in mission-critical software and automation solutions for financial services. Our award-winning Clareti platform helps firms operate efficiently, manage risk, stay compliant, and focus on their customers knowing that their data and digital processes are under control. Listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange (GHT.L) and headquartered in the City of London, our industry recognized Connect and Control Solutions, Data and Managed Services are proven at nearly three hundred organisations worldwide, including many of the world's largest banks, investment managers and corporates.
About WCM Investment Management:
WCM's primary goal is to generate long-term, sustainable, excess returns for clients by nurturing a culture of innovation, by closely aligning employee incentives with client objectives, and by preserving a flat power structure that fosters meritocracy and debate. WCM offers innovative, equity investment management services for a variety of clients, including corporations, individuals, public and private funds, Taft-Hartley plans, endowments, and foundations. Original equity research provides the foundation for WCM’s goal of long-term excess returns. WCM is motivated by a spirit of broad-based employee ownership, and is based in Laguna Beach, California.
Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing involves risk including the loss of principal.