Citi has won a full-service administration contract to support $4 billion of registered assets at Diamond Hill Capital Management of Columbus, Ohio. Thus, the scope of service Citi will provide includes administration, accounting, transfer agency, global custody and securities lending.
“We selected Citi because they offer a rare combination of global perspective and local on-the-ground presence, as well as the ability to structure and scale solutions to meet our specific needs,” said James F. Laird, chief financial officer of Diamond Hill. “In making the decision to move our business to Citi, we were impressed by Citi’s understanding of our day-to-day challenges and the value they place on fitting seamlessly into our operations with a consolidated service model.”
The contract award is notable, as it comes at a time when few investment advisors have been switching service providers—but are beginning to scrutinize the value their receive from their partners, noted Joseph Rezabek, managing director of Citi’s fund services for North America.
“Following the financial crisis of 2008 and regulatory reform, the need for consultation and thought leadership have become critical for investment advisors,” Rezabek said. “We at Citi have a culture that is built around a treasurer’s purview, whereas other service providers have built their businesses around custody, or around pure accounting. Our business has been built around a thorough fund administration and regulatory purview. By virtue of that, our clients get a Treasurer’s analytic perspective and our full support on compliance and other critical areas.”
Rezabek added: “Our model is genuinely about building solutions around the customer, rather than fitting a customer into our environment.”
Citi has a total of $13.5 trillion of assets under custody and operates the industry’s largest proprietary network.
Citi is about to announce two other new fund administrationt contracts, Rezabek said. Earlier this month, Citi announced that hedge fund Sandalwood Securities selected it for a full suite of hedge fund-of-funds administration and custody services.
“After a thorough review of service providers, two of the key factors driving our decision to select Citi were the quality of the professionals we met and Citi’s commitment to developing technology solutions,” said Ken Chapple, chief financial officer of Sandalwood Securities. “Citi’s investor services platform, and integrated fund-of-funds solution, provides us with direct, Web-based access to our investor reporting and portfolios and, as a result, additional transparency to our processes.
