Intertrust Group expands into Australian trustee services

Intertrust Group, a global provider of tech-enabled corporate and fund solutions, today announced the broadening of its Australian service offering to include regulated trustee, custody and escrow services.

For the past eight years, Intertrust has provided a wide range of corporate and fund administration services in Australia including company secretarial, board support, accounting and reporting, payroll and KYC/AML services.

Expanding into regulated trustee services is a logical next step, given Intertrust provides similar services in many of the world’s major financial markets including Hong Kong, Singapore, Luxembourg, Ireland, United States, Jersey and Cayman Islands.

The outsourced trustee services market for alternative funds (including private equity, real estate, venture capital, infrastructure and debt funds) continues to grow strongly in Australia and is estimated to have more than $500 billion in assets under administration with annual revenues of greater than $150 million per annum, making it an attractive market segment.

“Global investors are seeking service providers that have the commitment and capacity to partner with them in all of the major fund jurisdictions around the world,” said Andrew Cannane, Intertrust’s Corporate Trust Executive Director for Australia, who joined the firm at the start of 2020.

“Being granted our Australian Financial Services License (AFSL) allows us to now provide a complete end-to-end solution for alternative funds investing in Australia covering trustee, custody, fund administration and corporate services.”

He said Intertrust expects that a mixture of new and existing clients will drive the growth of the business here.

“We expect continued significant investment into Australian real assets by both local and international fund managers, institutional investors and superannuation and pension funds in the years ahead,” Mr Cannane said.

“For eligible investors, Managed Investment Trusts (MIT’s) remains a popular structure to hold real assets. Foreign investors will increasingly look to global, independent, non-conflicted, tech-enabled and reliable service providers to achieve economies of scale allowing them to focus on areas where they have a source of competitive advantage.”

Stephen Tamas, Managing Director for Intertrust Australia, commented, “It is a significant milestone in the evolution of our business in Australia, and I am proud to have Andrew at the helm of this new business unit, drawing on his 25+ years’ experience in financial services, including the past 15 years in corporate trustee services to support the growing needs of our local and global clients.”

Daniel Jaffe, Managing Director Market Offices, commented, “Expanding our Australian and New Zealand operations is a key priority for the Group. We see tremendous growth potential for the alternative funds segment across Asia Pacific, and remain well-placed to support this growth while continuing to invest in the region at a time where many other firms are pausing on expansionary activity.”

Intertrust has offices in more than 30 key financial jurisdictions globally with over 3,800 employees. Its clients include 60% of the top 10 Fortune Global 500, and 80% of the top 50 Private Equity International 300 firms. Its wholesale clients focus on direct investment into property, infrastructure, private equity, debt, and venture capital investments.