Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management (SMDAM), an asset management company in Japan, chose Burgiss, a provider of private capital data and analytics, as its long-term partner to help manage its growing business in alternative investments.
Japanese investors are steadily turning their focus toward private capital for better portfolio diversification and alpha. SMDAM has seen a recent surge in demand for both from its clients as well as a corresponding increase in the number of funds that need to be handled. The company also has funds of funds reporting that requires underlying portfolio company-level details.
In response, SMDAM began searching for a central system that efficiently automates its processes and offers additional fund analyses for its investment and risk teams. Burgiss was chosen for its standards-based, data-first approach that provides analytics to meet these requirements. With Burgiss’ portfolio management, transparency data, universe data, and investment book of record cashflow data services, SMDAM is now equipped with the tools to better serve its clients and reduce operational overhead.
“We eventually selected Burgiss as we felt that they provided the most flexibility in what we were trying to achieve,” Eiji Utsunomiya, general manager, alternative investment department at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management, said. “As our investors get more sophisticated in their requirements, SMDAM needs a global partner that has the right experience that we can rely on for the long run.”
“We are thrilled to have been chosen by SMDAM for their portfolio management, transparency data, and benchmarking needs for their private asset portfolio,” Wyn James, head of client coverage APAC at Burgiss, said. “Japan is a crucial market for our regional growth, and we recently opened our Japanese office alongside our partners at MSCI. This is in response to significantly growing market interest in Japan. SMDAM will be an important client for Burgiss as we continue this expansion from our base in Tokyo.
The SMDAM team chose Burgiss for our experience and track record as well as our flexibility around their requirements. They also understand the significant value that our partnership with MSCI brings—the ability to feed Burgiss private asset data into MSCI risk models, and in the future, the flexibility to add on ESG and Carbon Footprinting to their private equity and debt funds. We look forward to providing SMDAM with an arsenal of tools to better meet their clients’ needs and are very excited about our partnership.”
