MUFG Investor Services, the global asset servicing arm of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, has Implemented Anaplan for the use of carried interest modelling for its alternative investment clients with improved real-time planning and decision-making processes.
With the waterfall allocation methodology, MUFG Investor Services helps its clients move away from traditional, excel-based models to more modern processes that provide increased controls, accuracy and efficiency around inputting data, detailed calculation support for carried interest calculations, and the ability to create carried interest forecasting scenarios. The new tool enables MUFG to scale and centralise the process significantly, in addition to reducing the inconsistency of data sets and the level of risk in the processes.
“We are seeing a greater demand by limited partners for increased transparency into the performance fee process and there is an urgent need for smarter and more accurate technologies. The technology will replace existing risk prone, manually controlled processes and enable clients to tailor and run their own modelling scenarios, with minimal outside assistance.”
“Carried interest calculations are inherently complex, and modelling these calculations in Excel magnifies the control risk significantly. We are seeing a greater demand by General Partners to fully automate these calculations to mitigate that risk. Additionally, we are seeing a greater demand from limited partners for more increased transparency in the carried interest calculation process. This use of Anaplan meets both of these demands. Anaplan allows us to fully automate the calculations, eliminating the risks of Excel processing, and Anaplan’s custom dashboards allow us to provide full transparency into those calculations,” says Mike Dickey (pictured), Executive Director of Product Development at MUFG Investor Services.
MUFG Investor Services chose Anaplan due to its easy-to-use configurable front-end capabilities and the ability to integrate the solution with MUFG Investor Services’ sophisticated platforms, without the need for complicated technical support. Consequently, the platform provides a strong audit and control environment, which clients can access directly to interrogate and review. The flexibility of the platform will allow MUFG Investor services to meet its clients’ specific needs and enable MUFG to offer self serving model forecasting scenarios for our clients.
“Data transparency, monitoring and reporting are challenging issues in the alternative investment industry. Anaplan platform for Connected Planning provides flexible multi-dimensional modelling, delivering calculations at high speed for real-time insights and reporting that drive operational efficiencies. MUFG is able to greatly benefit from this capability and we look forward to the ongoing partnership,” says Henri Wajsblat, Head of Financial Services Solutions, Anaplan.
MUFG Investor Services has implemented Anaplan across Europe and North America, with the technology having been applied to key client funds launched in 2018 and integrated into the organisation’s private equity functions. Carried interest models for all client funds, as well as other fee calculations, will be integrated into the programme in 2019. MUFG Investor Services has established a Center of Excellence with dedicated resources in North America and Europe to handle and support future model roll-outs and enhancements.
