Long-Established CTA Firm Transitions from In-House Team to NAV to More Efficiently Handle Volume & Enhance Investor Services

Industry and business model changes led Campbell to re-evaluate its internal operational structure.

Campbell switched from an in-house admin team to NAV.

“Our company is more than fifty years old,” Radle explained. “Our internal fund administration team grew as our logistical needs became increasingly complex. We maintained a large internal fund accounting team and a transfer agency team. Our decision to outsource fund administration was driven by industry changes over time. Fee compression and periods when the macroeconomic environment proved challenging for our investment strategies both created a difficult business operating environment. Our business model needed to evolve in response, so outsourcing fund administration to a third-party solution was a natural and needed step.”

“What stands out for me is the level of efficiency we have achieved by using NAV vs. maintaining a dedicated in-house staff,” Culbertson added. “We get a high level of service and timely responses from their team. Investors don’t have to chase down answers to their questions.”

Campbell’s typical operational process encompasses a considerable and varied investor transaction workflow.

NAV’s experienced team and innovative systems have the capacity to process large numbers of investors activities.

During 2023 NAV efficiently and accurately processed more than 4,500 investor capital activities, including subscriptions, redemptions, and transfers; as well as 1,000+ changes in address, contact details, investor name, and custodian, broker, and financial advisor IDs.

Campbell required support to more effectively handle inquiry calls from investors and third parties.

NAV provides accurate and timely responses to stakeholders.

In 2023 the NAV team responded to more than 1,000 calls from Campbell’s investors, financial advisors, and other allied parties. “We have a standing weekly call with the NAV team,” Culbertson explained. “They are very communicative and always open to scheduling additional calls if the need arises.” Culbertson noted that what he found most impressive was NAV’s service level during the pandemic. “We never experienced a drop-off in the quality of service received. Things operated smoothly and continuously.”

Specific business and regulatory scenarios sometimes required non-standard report formats.

Campbell has often requested custom reporting adjustments and have been impressed with NAV’s prompt delivery of more than 75 new reports to date.

“NAV’s technology is top-notch, and they are wonderful to deal with,” Culbertson said. “In addition, NAV has been very flexible in accommodating our reporting requests. We never get ‘no’ for an answer — they tell us they will figure out how to get it done and get back to us, and they do.”

“A good example is a new report we requested due to a recent SEC regulatory change,” Culbertson explained. “The amended regulation added a requirement for mutual funds to monitor a daily VAR estimate. Internally we ran our calculation the way the SEC does, but as a backup we also asked NAV to put together a daily report for VAR estimate and they were able to do so. Now we download NAV’s report on a daily basis and compare it with our calculations. This externally generated report provides us with an independent, third-party computation to help us verify our numbers and satisfy the regulatory rule.”

Reliable 24/7 access to detailed fund information was a key requirement.

The Campbell team and their investors value the convenience and accessibility of the NAV investor and client portals.

“The NAV Portal is excellent,” Radle said. “It’s easy to navigate and there are never issues with it going down. We had previously outsourced some of these functions to another vendor and the difference is like night and day.” He finds the portal’s speed, accessibility, and depth of information to be of great benefit.

Radle explained that the NAV Portal enables clients to access statements when they need them and NAV is open to any feedback or special requests. “One example of NAV’s responsiveness was with a situation in which the default on historical information, such as redemption forms, was originally set to just six months. We discussed this with NAV and they implemented a change so we can now see up to 18 months of information.”

A large volume of commission calculations required error-free, prompt processing.

NAV has a unique system dedicated to timely calculation of broker-dealer trail and upfront commission.

The NAV NAVIRS system efficiently manages trail and upfront commission calculations for Campbell, encompassing 4,000+ broker representatives and 225+ broker-dealers.

The Campbell team was concerned a switch to a third-party administrator would be disruptive, resource-intensive, and impact investor service levels.

NAV offered Campbell a trial period of services at no cost and no obligation.

Campbell had previously experienced difficulties with other administrator systems being unable to handle their volume of needs. To demonstrate their capabilities, NAV conducted a trial that enabled Campbell to fully evaluate NAV services and observe how the NAV system performed under actual operational conditions. Based on the strength of a very successful trial, Campbell officially signed on as a client.