Applied Recruitment

CAREER OPPORTUNITY - LEGAL BACKGROUND WITHIN ASSET MGT DOCUMENTATION TEAM, C£50,000 PLUS EXCELLENT BENS, CITY

This is an excellent opportunity for either someone from a legal background with experience of dealing with IMA documentation within the financial sector or a 1 year PQ Lawyer looking to join a major financial organisation where you will be able to work within a strategic client-facing role. Our client, one of the World’s largest Fund Managers is currently seeking an IMA Contract Officer at Associate level within their Client Control team. This is a relatively new but established team (c2007) and will offer an excellent forward thinking team environment together with career development and progression for the right person.  The team provides a key role in on-boarding new clients together with managing change for existing clients; dealing with operational set-up and legal/contractual set-up.  The Contract team focuses on the drafting, negotiation, coordination and execution of the Investment Management Agreement (“IMA”) and other related documentation for new clients, or updating any existing IMAs for existing clients. This team forms part of a Portfolio Services Group and although it has a very close partnership with Legal on the mandates it is not part of the Legal team.

The team is uniquely positioned within the Business and work closely with all Product areas and Sales teams, and reach out to all other operational groups such as Reporting, Performance, Billing, Operations, as well as Legal. They cover the UK, Europe, Middle and Far East. The team presents an excellent opportunity to gain exposure to these areas of the business and to gain a wealth of knowledge about the workings of the Company and the products they manage. You will play an important role in this critical component of winning new business and managing change for existing clients.

The Role

Each Contract Officer is responsible for their own portfolio of business, made up of Client Relationship Managers and/or specific regions whose clients they support from a documentation perspective providing an in depth knowledge of the client’s mandates and excellent client focus.  This will include a variety of duties including;

Key Responsibilities

• Accurate drafting, negotiation and coordination of drafted IMAs and amendments including all legal and operational points as well as drafting the investment criteria.
• Facilitation and coordination of all internal stakeholders in the IMA contract process, ensuring their comments are centralised, incorporated where possible and subsequent approvals are obtained.
• Facilitation and coordination of client-own drafted agreements, liaising with Legal on the Terms of Business and other stakeholders on the investment criteria and other operational aspects.
• Review and coordination of Implementation Strategy Documents.
• Support the Sales team with IMA related client contractual documentation queries.
• Mitigate legal risk through strict adherence to a negotiation framework defined by the Legal team.
• To record relevant non-standard contractual clauses on an ongoing basis through the maintenance of an established client documentation database.

The documentation to be managed by Client Control Contracting covers investment management agreements, transition management agreements, related confidentiality agreements and their subsequent amendments to reflect changes in client mandates.   Trading documentation (such as ISDAs) and fund documentation is explicitly out of the scope of this team.

Essential Requirements/Qualifications

The ideal candidate will have at least one year’s experience of drafting Investment Management Agreements within asset management possessing either:

• A legal background or qualification with experience of drafting and negotiating IMAs for an institutional client base; or
• No formal legal qualification but excellent knowledge and experience in negotiating investment management agreements and investment guidelines for institutional clients - essential

In addition:

• Good knowledge and understanding of investment management (fund types, client base and strategies, operational set up, products) is essential
• Excellent attention to detail organisational skills and able to follow processes accurately
• Excellent communication (verbal and written) and interpersonal skills
• Excellent prioritisation skills, ability to effectively manage expectations of their clients, meet deadlines etc. within a fast-paced environment
• Coordination/project management skills essential
• Control and risk mentality
• Ability to think independently – especially with respect to improving processes

"Think what you could achieve if you knew you couldn't fail" - Anon