Maitland, a global advisory and fund administration firm, has entered into a contract with MMI Holdings, a South Africa based financial services group listed on the JSE, to perform independent third-party administration services for its domestic portfolios, which together represents $30bn in assets under management.

Andre le Roux, Head of Business Development for Africa at Maitland, said that Maitland was selected for its ability to provide a single operating platform for MMI’s investment administration consolidation programme: “Using NeoXam’s NX Manager portfolio management software and SunGard’s Asset Arena (InvestOne) platform, we aim to transition MMI onto our operating ecosystem within 12 months of signing the agreement."

The contract comprises 1,500 investment portfolios of South African and international assets and over 33,000 monthly transactions.

The contract will boost Maitland's assets under administration to over $280bn, reinforcing its position as one of the world's largest fund administrators.

Maitland will provide a “turnkey” administration platform to facilitate MMI’s strategic initiative of consolidating its investment capabilities under a single business and adopting a business model guided by innovative outcomes-based investment approach.

This follows the merger five years ago of the operating brands of Metropolitan and Momentum to form MMI.

The agreement follows a “hybrid lift-out” model, whereby Maitland will assimilate a significant number of MMI’s operational staff into their new Johannesburg office to operate on the Maitland administration platform and provide further access to a new talent pool located in Johannesburg in addition to its traditional Cape Town hub.

Andre Nortje, COO of MMI’s Investments and Savings Division, said: “Maitland’s track record demonstrated that we would be able to satisfy our twin imperatives of consolidation and speed of implementation of our domestic portfolios, onto their internationally capable administration ecosystem."

"It will accelerate the execution of our growth strategy by allowing us to focus our management time on our investment and client experience value propositions,” he added.