Increased automation and growing demand for more transparency have seen hedge fund managed accounts grow in popularity and brought down the cost of their administration, according to JP MorgaPARA_BREAK_SENTINEL_9f8e7d6c

Increased automation and growing demand for more transparency have seen hedge fund managed accounts grow in popularity and brought down the cost of their administration, according to JP Morgan, reported AsianInvestor this week. The bank said it was seeing a lot of growth in separately managed accounts and single-investor type funds within Asia’s private equity and hedge fund sectors. Adam Wallace, head of hedge fund services Asia Pacific for JP Morgan Worldwide Securities Services noted that as a result of the competitive fundraising environment the required threshold for setting up a segregated account with an Asian hedge fund manager has come down. Elliot Brown (pictured), global product executive for hedge fund services at JP Morgan Worldwide Securities Services said that advances in automation have helped lower costs, saying: “In general, the more straight-through processes you’ve got and the more automated your end-to-end system is, the lower the [operational] cost per fund.” He believes demand for SMAs is being driven by investor demand for transparency. You also have much greater control over when the account gets liquidated or when capital gains are generated on the account said Brown.