Company Profiles
Local Partnerships: FundCount's Middle East, Africa Expansion

FundCount recently picked up awards from WealthBriefing in the MENA region and this news service recently quizzed the international firm about its strategy in the area.
FundCount, the
US-headquartered business that provides accounting and investment
analysis software for wealth managers and family offices
worldwide, is upbeat about its work in the Middle East and
Africa. And that’s unsurprising after it
scooped two awards at this news service’s MENA region gala
event held in Dubai a fortnight ago.
Working with partners in places such as Mauritius – giving it
great access to the Africa market – FundCount integrates its
offerings with existing solutions that local clients have. This
reduces costs for clients in what is often a price-sensitive
market, Alex Ivanov, chief executive and co-founder of the firm,
told this publication.
“The competition is different in the MENA region than the
Americas or EMEA and with our historic success in the Middle
East, we’re well-positioned to take advantage of the needs
there,” Ivanov said.
Commenting on Africa specifically, Ivanov said FundCount needed a
local footprint – which it gained through a partnership with a
Mauritius-based fund administrator. Using FundCount, the firm is
delivering expertise locally and helping family offices with
accounting and reporting to gain insights from their data, an
area of growing importance, he said.
Mike Slemmer, chief operating officer, Americas, told this
publication that FundCount is working on ways that local clients
can fit their systems with the firm’s offerings and restrain
costs. “With local [African] firms we have to be more creative
with our solutions,” he said.
The MENA region is another dimension to a firm that serves more
than 130 single and multi-family offices, fund administrators,
private equity and hedge funds firms worldwide, with assets
totalling more than $150 billion. It has offices in Boston,
Zurich, London, Singapore and Sydney. Globlly, the firm has more
than 50 staff and revenues are up 22 per cent this year.
Middle East
The Middle East market, meanwhile, is a significant one for
FundCount, given the considerable family offices space and other
wealth management entities in that region, Slemmer said. In
certain respects this market is not different in kind from the
other markets in which FundCount operates.
Asked how the firm matched up to targets at the start of the
year, Slemmer said FundCount had “met and exceeded
expectations…penetration of the single family office space is
good….we have signed up some significant SFOs in the UK as well
as in the Middle East”.
The firm is poised to announce new capabilities to integrate with
“best of breed” applications, so the next few months are going to
be busy for FundCount, he said.
In March this year this news service issued a report, “Family
Office Focus: Efficiency in Accounting and Investment Analysis”
in conjunction with FundCount. The report examined family offices
through a survey of 44 firms and interviews with 20 senior
executives representing over $72 billion in assets under
management.
(The firm won Best Client Accounting Solution and Best Client Communications Solution awards this year in Dubai.)