- Contract
- London
- £70000 - £75000 per annum GBP / Year
Fund Accountant Associate Private Equity 6 month FTC
Our client is an international Private Equity firm with more than 12 billion USD in assets under management and offices in five countries.
Job Purpose
You will work closely with the other members of the Portfolio Management team, as well as with members of the Investments and Asset Management teams, providing financial and treasury management and control, financial reporting (IFRS and UK GAAP) and transaction support, as well as identifying and implementing initiatives to add value in the assets the funds’ hold.
You will play an integral part in the reporting and operations for the various unlisted infrastructure funds, with assets under management of over USD 3bn. You will deal with investor related queries relating to the funds, new fund investments and process improvements requiring collaboration with colleagues across internal teams and the third-party administrator. Day-to-day financial management for each of the investments is outsourced to a variety of third-party providers.
This is a temporary assignment until April 2025.
Key Job Responsibilities
Portfolio Management
- Ensuring efficient administration, funding and maintenance of holding structures through the life of the investments and liaising with overseas administrators where applicable.
- Maintaining active tracking of the performance of fund strategies over time, reporting to fund managers in a proactive and consistent manner.
- Support of initiatives across the platform, including ad hoc transaction work.
Financial & Regulatory reporting
Manage fund performance of the funds. This includes:
- Preparation of fund quarterly investor and internal reports, annual accounts, semi-annual valuations and investor returns (routine and ad hoc) with the support of other members of the Fund Management team and third-party administrators.
- Working closely with the Third-Party Administrator (“TPA”) to ensure timely and accurate reporting of the actual results of the unlisted infrastructure funds and intermediate holding entities on a quarterly basis
- Review of statutory accounts prepared under either FRS 102 or IFRS; working closely with the TPA, Auditors and the wider business
- Deliver quarter and year end close processes
Review regulatory reporting including
- Address feedback from the tax department to ensure that all information required for UK, U.S. and overseas tax reporting is delivered accurately to third-party service providers within required deadlines
- Review of quarterly AIFMD returns prepared by TPA
FX Hedging and Treasury
- Monitoring the various hedging strategies to ensure optimal performance against market conditions and to be in line with company policy.
- Undertake and monitor FX requirements on a deal by deal / currency by currency basis, working with the Treasurer to ensure hedges are executed in line with Treasury policy
- Ensure all trades are executed, documented and communicated to the TPA; including meeting compliance and settlement deadlines
- Managing Compliance reporting to banks in line with regulatory requirements
Payments and cash management
- Review and sign off weekly payment runs in line with fund requirements, including ensuring accurate coding of funds flow for payments through complex funding structures, including weekly updates of fund forecast cash flow and requirements
- Facility utilisations, repayments and associated management, including letters of credit
- Monitoring cash transfers between fund and project bank accounts to ensure compliance with finance agreements
Ad-hoc responsibilities
- Support the implementation of value-add initiatives (at the company, Fund and investment level)
- Assist with new fund investments and disposals as and when required; and
- Work with the TPA and wider business to identify efficiencies and process improvements.
Skills and Qualifications
- Good knowledge of fund accounting, financial management and managing transactions
- Educated to degree level or equivalent with an additional European language preferred but not required
- Proficient in MS Excel and working with detailed Excel models
- Analytically rigorous and detail-oriented, particularly with regards to numerical analysis, legal documentation and written reports
- Good project management skills; Manage involvement in a number of simultaneous initiatives, deliver work to agreed deadlines and work well with a variety of individuals across a complex and evolving business
- Service-focussed and comfortable dealing with investors, internal teams and external auditors/bankers
- Strong communicator who can collaborate effectively with a broad range of stakeholders
- Able to synthesise complex matters effectively and concisely
- Ability to work both autonomously and as part of a team
- Problem-solving-oriented and keen to use personal initiative
- Ability to structure the processes & systems required to actively manage the fund portfolio
- Hold a relevant professional accounting qualification, ACCA, ACA preferred, and 1-2 PQE preferred
- The ability to actively manage the TPA and numerous parallel tasks effectively through to completion
- Ability to manage and work to key reporting deadlines; organised with attention to detail
- Commercially astute professional
- Familiarity with “Investran” an advantage
- Demonstrated active listening skills