Specialist | Institutional Fund Operations | Fund Operations (Investment Accounting) at Allan Gray Proprietary Limited

Job Summary

• The candidate will be responsible for performing the day-to-day operational processes for various investment accounting, data management and market data activities. The candidate will work in Institutional Fund Operations, working closely with the other operational departments (NAV Pricing, Performance, Portfolio Administration) as well as Tax, Institutional Client Services, Legal & Compliance, IT, and Trading.

This is a fixed-term contract role for a period of 18 months. 
Job Responsibilities

Market Data

• Ensuring that the daily instrument valuation/pricing and exchange rate processes run accurately and timeously.
• Ensuring that instrument price files are received from all local and foreign sources (exchange and vendor data).
• Liaising with data vendors (e.g., JSE/Bloomberg) on data quality and other queries (eg. valuation).
• The setting up of system parameters in Markit (MDS) for certain instruments as and when they are created by the front office team.
• Collaboration with the relevant IT domain teams to maintain, develop and enhance the market data infrastructure to keep systems up-to-date and efficient.
• Monitoring the end-of-day price reconciliation process and investigating any identified price/valuation discrepancies.
• Managing and maintaining data contracts and vendor relationships.
• Managing the benchmark data processes, including:
• Creation of benchmarks as required by the Performance team.
• Sourcing and scrubbing of daily and monthly benchmark data files.
• Managing validation exceptions of benchmark data when required.
• Maintenance of benchmark static data.

Institutional Data Management 

• Creation of instruments as required by the front or middle office teams.
• Portfolio Creation and classifications.
• Maintenance of instrument static data for upstream and downstream usage. 
• Reconciling static data to market sources to ensure accuracy and consistency in data across all internal systems.
• Investigation of instrument data inconsistencies and validation errors. 
• Monitor the BOD (beginning of day) processes.
• Monitoring of communications from data vendor regarding any changes that may affect the fund pricing process and informing other business teams where necessary (eg. Corporate Actions, Trading, Fund Accounting).
• Daily monitoring and updating of instrument classifications used for reporting

 
Additional Activities

• Assisting with month-end pricing across all portfolios.
• Calculating daily interest coupon accruals.
• Monitoring and answering queries from the Institutional Data Management and Investment Accounting email queue. 
• Involvement in initiatives/project work that seeks to simplify and create efficiencies in existing processes.

Experience & Qualifications

• Chartered Accountant or
• B Com or equivalent degree - Higher Diploma or Honours will be an advantage
• A minimum of three years of experience in asset management (FS articles experience counts)
• Must have a strong technical understanding of instrument valuation and pricing
• Experience in working with the following systems would be advantageous:
• Charles River Investment Management Solution (CRIMS)
• IHS Markit
• Fundamental Portfolio Manager (FPM)
• A history of strong performance. 

Competencies

• Strong numeric ability and a questioning mind
• Accuracy and attention to detail
• A self-starter with the ability to create efficient processes and controls
• Ability to operate independently as well as in a team environment
• Interpersonal and communication skills to build and maintain strong working relationships with relevant stakeholders, both internally and externally, and to defend an opinion with rationale and logic
• Ability to accept responsibility for all tasks done
• Good time management skills, and the ability to manage heavy workloads and multiple tasks – work flexible hours , particularly in the event of market vendor issues as well as follow a shift work schedule.
• Excellent analytical and problem-solving skills
• Very disciplined and methodical style of working
• Determined, engaged and persistent proactive “can-do” attitude that inspires others to do great work