What – for you – were the contributing factors behind the successful year that led to this award? 
A major factor is that the current market for unlisted closed-end funds continues to be strong as fund advisors add products to their line-ups. We saw an increasing number of managers choosing shared services as a long-term solution. The economics of these funds make them attractive for managers.
Another factor is our reputation within the closed-end fund space. We are known for our efficient, high-quality service and consultative approach. We are able to educate and help guide advisors who are new to the product.
Could you outline some of the main achievements and milestones from the year?
This year, we launched our second turnkey Registered Funds Solutions platform, RFS II, for starting and operating unlisted closed-end funds. During 2022, we experienced strong growth in our closed-end fund segment—we added $13.05 billion of assets under administration—and serviced 62 unlisted closed-end funds by year end. As we continued to see demand in 2023, we knew we would need to create a second, parallel registered funds platform to support clients. We were excited to be in the position to launch our second platform thereby ensuring we can meet the needs of our clients.
The platform offers benefits including management of initial fund registration process, vetted, experienced partners, E&O/D&O and fidelity bond insurance, and anti-money laundering reviews.
We launched the first fund on the new platform and have two additional launches underway.
Another achievement was the election of an independent Board of Directors to oversee the platform. Funds are overseen by an industry-savvy board of four directors, each with extensive experience in the financial services and legal industries.
How do you plan to build on this success going into the rest of the year and beyond?
We plan to uphold the practices that our reputation is built upon. We will continue excellent service and our consultative approach with current and prospective clients. One way we support clients in this area is through our annual report on unlisted closed-end funds, see this link for the report https://contact.umb.com/unlistedcefs, providing a market analysis on this growing segment.
We will also continue to work with advisors and our business partners to successfully launch new registered funds products on our RFS II platform.