Case Study: Gravis Advisory Ltd

Collaborating with a specialist infrastructure, real estate, and private credit manager as it sought to drive efficiencies and best practice to support growth and diversification across the operating model supporting its fund range.

Client Background

Gravis Advisory Ltd (Gravis) is an independently managed United Kingdom (UK)-based asset manager specialising in infrastructure, real estate, and private credit investments. It has £2.3 billion (approximately US$3.1 billion) in assets under management (as of 31 March 2025)¹.

Gravis’ approach to investment and fund distribution is focused on generating dependable cash flows and long-term predictable income for its clients.

Building on its initial infrastructure focused investments, Gravis has expanded in recent years into increasingly varied areas of activity, such as renewable energy generation, logistics, and data centres, to name but a few.

The Challenge

Gravis’ management team sought to optimise levels of resiliency, oversight, and control for the operational arrangements supporting its open-ended investment company (OEIC) fund range in the UK.

Investigate whether their operating model for the funds remained optimum given their broadening investor base, expected growth and market solutions available.
Explore opportunities to drive efficiencies and standardise service experiences for their investment team and clients.
Assess whether their trading and execution costs could be managed more efficiently.
Potentially reduce their number of service providers to enhance operational efficiency and service standardisation.
Gain more comprehensive access to funds industry expertise.

The Engagement

Monterey Insight ranks Northern Trust as the UK’s leading provider of custody, depositary services, and fund accounting by number of funds. This position provides us with an asset servicing lens of the UK funds industry through which we gain a clear view of the market trends impacting clients, dynamics of the regulatory environment, emerging opportunities for investment managers, and challenges investors face.

It meant we were well placed to engage with Gravis’ management team to exchange views on the evolution of their service provider model to enhance the operations supporting UK funds. We shared our experiences and credentials of working with clients to optimise their arrangements and achieve similar objectives to those outlined by Gravis’ team.

This included demonstrating Northern Trust’s robust fund accounting, depositary, and transfer agency capabilities. Points of discussion included our network of platform relationships, technology capabilities, institutionalised processes, tools for managing investor subscriptions and redemptions, and ability to manage market opening documentation on clients’ behalf. Our ability to integrate smoothly with Gravis’ chosen order management system was also an important touchpoint.

Members of our institutional brokerage team met with Gravis to discuss our execution capabilities and options to support their trading – with particular focus on spreads, liquidity, and service depth. Opportunities were subsequently identified where Gravis might improve execution flow. As discussions progressed, workshops also took place outlining our dedicated support for onboarding new clients’ funds and experience of helping minimise disruption resulting from transitions of service providers.

The Outcome

Gravis appointed Northern Trust in 2025 to provide fund administration, global custody, depositary, and transfer agency in addition to outsourced trading via its Integrated Trading Solutions Team, for their five OEICs.

This comprehensive solution set supports our client’s core focus on managing their investments and clients, while delivering value across a range of areas. These range from driving execution efficiency via outsourced trading through to delivering post-trade reporting, valuation, and investor servicing for the fund range.

“Northern Trust’s significant footprint in the UK funds industry and globally, comprehensive integrated trading solutions offering and cultural fit with Gravis were key reasons for this appointment. We create efficiencies by streamlining service provision for our OEIC funds, increasing access to funds industry expertise, and supporting our mission of aiming to provide investors with steady returns.”

– Matthew Norris, Managing Director and Fund Manager for the TM Gravis UK Listed Property Fund and the TM Gravis Digital Infrastructure Income Fund.

Sources

^{[1] Monterey Insight UK Fund Report, November 26, 2024}

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