At Ultimus, we tailor our comprehensive mutual fund services to meet the unique needs of various sized fund groups, offering both series trust and standalone trust solutions. Whether you’re starting a new mutual fund or ETF or have existing funds, we have solutions that may help you grow your business. Our mutual fund creation experience has long been established. In addition, we have gained extensive experience managing conversions over the past decade, which means we’ve honed our processes in order to make the transition as seamless for you as possible. You can depend on our industry expertise and proven methodology to help you establish or reorganize your funds with Ultimus.
Ultimus’ Services for Registered Funds:
Our institutional quality technology, infrastructure, control environment, and experience can support any type of investment strategy, including those with sophisticated reporting needs. This is supported by significant investments in systems and processes, including management committees that review risks, vendors, pricing information for valuations, and performance metrics. Our accounting professionals work in an environment of strong internal controls to ensure high quality, extensive, and reliable personal service. The comprehensive fund accounting operational procedures and controls Ultimus has developed and implemented have contributed to consistently clean SOC1 audits.
Our fund accounting department’s core duties include providing NAV calculations for all portfolios and funds that price daily or on other frequencies , as well as cash forecasting and corporate action processing. Ultimus also provides specialized services for ETFs, including processing of the daily Portfolio Composition File (PCF) and oversight of create/redeem files as needed.
Additionally, Ultimus’ mutual fund and ETF adviser clients are granted exclusive access to our Ultimus Distribution Advantage Program, which provides detailed distribution planning information, tools, and support. The Ultimus Distribution Advantage site offers details regarding the most relevant intermediaries in the financial services industry, such as data about their fees, minimum requirements, and underlying platforms and programs. You will also find other tools, such as a calendar of upcoming events and industry conferences and directory listings for marketers, website designers, third party marketers, and data providers, that can help you maximize your distribution program.
Unique approach to distribution and providing support to firms | Growing a distribution strategy with Ultimus’ guidance | Ultimus provides critical solutions for ongoing needs |
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As your business partner, Ultimus efficiently handles all administrative duties for registered funds, including preparation and SEC filing of shareholder reports, performance reporting, board reporting and communications, and treasury operations. By partnering with Ultimus, you can focus on managing your portfolios and growing fund assets, while we skillfully handle all your administrative responsibilities.
Ultimus uses state-of-the-art systems to provide the best service as possible for registered funds, including reporting for all SEC regulatory filings, expense management, portfolio analytics covering performance, attribution, contribution, allocation, and risk reporting, and automated daily fund and benchmark performance calculations. Our team also supports fund auditors and reporting and presentations at quarterly board meetings, as well as establishing and monitoring operating budgets, and paying fund operating expenses, including monthly management fees.
Compliance solutions to keep firms up-to-date |
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To ensure that they meet today’s stringent compliance requirements, all registered funds are required to designate a Chief Compliance Officer (CCO). Ultimus, whose staff includes attorneys, former regulators, former CPAs/auditors, former CCOs, and operations professionals, provides an experienced, qualified person to act on an independent basis as your fund’s CCO. This diverse experience enables us to evaluate the steady stream of new regulations from many different perspectives, resulting in practical and cost-effective implementation strategies. Your compliance officer reports directly to your fund’s board of directors/trustees. This service is provided for all Ultimus-sponsored series trusts and is available for those who operate funds in a standalone trust.
Our goal is to help ensure that registered funds meet the SEC’s stringent regulatory compliance requirements. We assist funds in complying with the federal securities laws (defined by Rule 38a-1) and meeting the responsibilities as outlined by Rule 38a-1. Ultimus’ program is tailored to meet the needs of funds seeking a cost-effective alternative to hiring a CCO on a full-time basis, as we provide an experienced, qualified, and independent person to act as the fund’s CCO.
As a new client, you will initially work with our adviser services team, which includes fund launch specialists. You will be assigned a project manager who will guide you through the onboarding or conversion process and coordinate your connectivity and engagement with third party service providers (custodians, prime brokerage firms, and auditors) and your core Ultimus service teams, such as fund administration and fund accounting. Lastly, your dedicated relationship manager will serve as your point of contact for the overall relationship after your new product launch.
Ultimus seeks to build a lasting and productive relationship with you by thoroughly understanding your needs and being attentive to even the smallest details. Your project and relationship managers act as a central point of contact between multiple operational teams, outside counsel, and third-party service partners, such as custodians, prime brokerage firms, and auditors. The team will guide you through the onboarding process for new funds, conversions, or share class creation; create a customized written project schedule, set expectations, and coordinate all communication and tasks.
Ultimus provides comprehensive legal fund administration services so that you can focus on your strengths—managing investments and attracting new assets. Our highly-skilled team of legal administrative professionals including 1940 Act attorneys, paralegals, and other professionals are all focused on helping you avoid unpredictable hourly billing.
We handle all internal legal documentation for your fund and work closely with your fund’s outside counsel on all matters pertaining to launch, conversion, or continued operations. This includes assisting in drafting your fund’s prospectus and SEC filings, as well as necessary agreements and contracts. Once the fund is in operation, we will coordinate with outside counsel on regular and special board meetings and periodic updates of your fund’s required documents.
Our dedicated transfer agent, shareholder servicing and dealer servicing teams employ leading-edge technology, a comprehensive offering of supplemental services, and a flexible, open architecture format to provide seamless management of investor relations and communications. The experience and attention to detail of the Ultimus teams of professionals result in consistently clean SOC1 audits. In addition, our dealer services team interacts daily with a broad spectrum of broker-dealer back offices, registered representatives, and RIAs to support fund trades, 12b-1 fee and commission payments, and sales reporting. Ultimus has complete connectivity to the NSCC Fund/SERV and DTCC Alternative Investment Product (AIP) services.
Ultimus handles all shareholder inquiries promptly, courteously, and securely. Our call center technology solution allows for multiple call routing, which allows complex calls to be routed directly to senior customer service agents. Thanks to our low turnover, shareholders speak with the same group of representatives time after time. In fact, due to this consistency and shareholder familiarity, our clients view Ultimus as an extension of their business.
Registered funds have many unique tax characteristics, which require specialized expertise. The Ultimus tax team is responsible for all aspects of tax reporting, such as the identification of securities that may require special tax treatment and the preparation of tax provisions for fiscal year-end reporting, including support schedules. The team assists fund administration professionals on the required distributions for your funds and assists your fund’s independent public accounting firm in matters related to tax preparation and timely filings of all tax returns.
Ultimus’ unique co-sourcing operating model leverages a single technology platform to support your front office, sales and marketing team, and investors. This advanced central data repository stores all of your investment data (security master, transactions, holdings, taxlots, daily P&L) as well as third party market data (analytics, prices, corporate actions, benchmark data). In addition to having extensive experience integrating this data with many different front office technologies, the Ultimus solution also makes this data available to your investors through web portals. Our state-of-the art technological infrastructure provides you access to important post-execution trade data, including profit and loss computation, attribution and risk analytics, to support daily portfolio evaluation and sales efforts.
Contact us or click here to learn more about the specific front, middle, and back office services Ultimus provides.
Ultimus Distribution Advantage
Ultimus clients are granted exclusive access to Ultimus’s Distribution Advantage Program, which provides detailed distribution planning information, tools, and support. The Distribution Advantage program offers details regarding intermediaries in the financial services industry, such as data about fees, minimum requirements, and underlying platforms and programs. You will also find other tools, such as a calendar of upcoming events and industry conferences and directory listings for marketers, website designers, third party marketers, and data providers, that can help you maximize your distribution program.
Specifically, find information about:
- Platforms, channels, and pricing
- Software programs and databases
- Industry conferences and organizations
- Marketing and PR considerations
Contact us to learn more or request a login.