GERMANY – Two former executives at fund administrator BHW Invest have launched a new consulting firm targeted mainly at German asset managers.

They are former chief executive Hans-Jürgen Dannheisig and ex-spokesman Clemens Schuerhoff and the firm is called kommalpha.

Schuerhoff said the new firm would advise asset managers on the operational aspects of their business.

“A good example of this is advice on products, including those related to retirement provision,” Schuerhoff told IPE from Hannover.

“At first, we will mostly target our consulting at asset managers in Germany, but down the road, we will want to reach international ones as well,” he said.

Schuerhoff added that kommalpha had already won five advising mandates and expected to break even by the end of this year.

Another well-known advisor to asset managers is Frankfurt-based Funds at Work. Funds at Work, however, specialises in advising companies tied to the asset management industry.

Kommalpha’s emergence follows Dannheisig and Schuerhoff’s departure from BHW Invest earlier this year. BHW Invest became defunct when it was merged with another fund administrator that belongs to German private bank BHF-Bank.

The new merged entity, called FSK, has no plans to continue BHW Invest’s former speciality of providing so-called “master funds”. Master funds consolidate back-office administration of institutional funds – for example, reporting – to reduce costs and boost transparency for the investor.

Prior to being gobbled up by FSK, BHW Invest had only €3bn in assets under administration – far below the €10bn which experts say is the threshold for viability of the master fund business.

Meanwhile, Ulrich Kaffarnik, another former managing director at BHW Invest, has joined DJE Investment, a Luxembourg-based asset manager. At DJE, Kaffarnik is a managing director in charge of business development.

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