Challenger Limited continues growth focus through strategic expansion of SimCorp Dimension
SimCorp, a leading provider of investment management solutions and services for the global financial services industry, today announced that Challenger Limited, an ASX listed investment management company and Australia's leading annuities provider, has committed to expand its use of SimCorp Dimension. This will continue to enhance Challenger’s capabilities, particularly in offering their boutique partnership operations a truly integrated platform.
A major factor in Challenger's decision to extend its license was SimCorp's sustained investment in research and development, as evidenced by the continuous enhancement of the company's investment management solution. “The latest evidence of SimCorp’s development efforts is the newest suite of front office products. SimCorp is now offering quality front office functionality but with the one clear additional benefit, it is truly integrated with the back-office, eliminating the need for data transformation and reconciliation, which creates savings versus a disparate systems environment,” said David Mackaway, General Manager Operations, Challenger.
In 2003, when Challenger first considered SimCorp Dimension, the company had approximately $10 billion in funds under management. It was faced with the need to either isolate its legacy system and attempt to remove the dependencies of a platform ill-equipped to meet future business demands, or invest in a modern investment management system.
Mr. Mackaway said, “When choosing SimCorp as our partner in 2003 it was extremely important to ensure we had an operational environment that was able to service a diverse business model that was likely to invest in a diverse range of securities across a range of markets. As the business grew, it would also need to become more efficient and effective with scale.”
In the decade since, Challenger has used the SimCorp platform to establish a central investment book of record as the fundamental, accurate source of information used across the organization and across all processes. Today, Challenger is managing funds in excess of $40 billion and is one of Australia’s most efficient financial services companies with a cost-to-income ratio of 35 per cent.
Mr. Mackaway said, “Having technology that allows you to position yourself with unique market products is key to continuing growth. As our partner, SimCorp has had the capabilities and capacity to support our growth to date. As we continue to grow and expand into new markets we look forward to our ongoing relationship with SimCorp in achieving our goals.”
According to Managing Director for SimCorp Asia, Peter Hill, “Challenger has been an important part of our growth in the Australian market as well as an excellent sparring partner for our development process as we enhance the functionality of our product, SimCorp Dimension. We believe that Challenger's experiences are testament to the ways in which modern technology can help shape the course of a business with great success.”
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Enquiries regarding this announcement should be addressed to:
Christian Eriksen, Marketing Manager, SimCorp Asia, +61 292 403524
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About Challenger
Challenger Limited is an ASX listed investment management company managing in excess of $40 billion in assets. Challenger is Australia’s leading annuities provider and manages around $10bn on behalf of over 60,000 annuitants. Challenger’s funds management business is Australia’s ninth largest fund manager and includes Fidante Partners. Fidante Partners comprises 11 co-owned, separately branded boutique active investment managers, managing over $26bn. The boutique fund managers strive to deliver sustainable superior investment performance across a broad range of investment strategies including fixed income, global credit, inflation-linked bonds and Australian and global equities.
About SimCorp
Since 1971, SimCorp has been providing investment and portfolio management software and services to the world’s leading investment managers, asset managers, fund managers, fund administrators, pension funds, insurance funds and wealth managers. SimCorp’s world-class software provides global financial organisations with the tools they need to mitigate risk, reduce cost and enable growth. SimCorp is a global company, regionally covering all of Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Listed on the NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen, SimCorp is dedicated to supporting the global investment management industry, its clients and its investors. For more information about SimCorp’s products, please visit www.simcorp.com/product.