The investment management systems vendor is opening two new offices to better cover Northern and Southern Europe.
Citing a recent client win as the incentive, investment systems vendor SimCorp is revamping its organizational structure in Europe, establishing new Northern and Southern European market units that will be working with the existing Central European group.
Anders Crillesen, communications principal, SimCorp
The changes on the European front will not have any impacts on SimCorp’s operations in North America, SimCorp officials say. “This market continues to have a high priority as our main growth market,” says Anders Crillesen, communications principal and media contact for SimCorp, in response to questions from FTF News.
SimCorp anticipates that it will be hiring new staff members over the coming months.
“We will expand in Southern Europe. With our big new client win in Italy (Generali), we will open a new office there, which for a start will be staffed with four consultants,” says Crillesen.
Crillesen is referring to the news late last year that asset manager Generali Investments and its insurance companies in Italy and France announced that they will be using SimCorp Dimension as their enterprise investment management solution.
The Generali Group has signed on to use the SimCorp software systems as the basis for a front-to-back-office investment management platform, SimCorp officials say. Generali will also be using SimCorp Dimension’s integrated Investment Book of Record (IBOR) offering, investment accounting, data warehouse, reporting, and portfolio management solutions.
Generali’s agreement with SimCorp will help the company “drive operational efficiencies and support future growth,” says Bruce Hodges, Generali group chief information and digital officer, in a statement. The win gives SimCorp “a bridgehead into the Italian market, where we will now open a new office,” SimCorp CEO Klaus Holse, says in a prepared statement.
The Generali Group reports that it had a total premium income exceeding €74 billion ($78.7 billion) in 2015, employs more than 76,000 people worldwide, and serves 55 million insured persons in more than 60 countries. Generali Investments is the main asset manager of the Generali Group, with approximately €450 billion ($478.9 billion) of assets under management as of Oct. 31, 2016, according to Generali Investments Europe SpA Società di gestione del risparmio.
Also, late last year, SimCorp’s board of directors announced that Thomas Johansen, the company’s chief financial officer would be stepping down immediately and that the company would “initiate a process for recruitment of a new CFO.” In addition, the CFO’s sudden exit will not impact “the financial results for 2016, which were provided 10 November 2016 in connection with the announcement of the financial results for the first nine months of 2016.”
In an update, Crillesen reports that a permanent replacement for Johansen has not yet been found.
“We have hired Søren Strøm as interim CFO until we have found a permanent replacement,” Crillesen says. “Søren has been the CFO and member of the executive management team at several large companies including DT Group, Maersk Line and Clipper Group.”
The SimCorp integrated system has different components covering key investment processing functions in the front, middle and back-offices of securities trading firms, officials say. The SimCorp Dimension software components have been built “in a role-based manner so that all your roles (managers) are covered, front-to-back,” officials add.
Based in Copenhagen, SimCorp has more than 170 clients globally who oversee $19 trillion in assets under management, officials say.
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