Huntington Asset Services expects 2013 to be a big year for growth, with more advisors looking to enter the '40 Act space and others moving away from service vendors that skimp on, well,…their service.

"Advisors, for a variety of reasons, are asking themselves, 'Am I at the right place in terms of a service provider? Am I getting all I need with that service provider? If I can't say yes, where should I be looking?'" Jeff Young, Huntington senior vice president for relationship management told MFWire reporters during an interview. "We still have the complete full service model."

According to Young, Huntington has roughly 45 asset manager clients, providing some form of custody or other servicing to over $45 billion in assets. There are at least 200 funds that the company touches in some shape or form, he said.

The services the company now provides include mutual fund transfer agency, fund accounting, administration, distribution, Internet and other services for both existing and new mutual funds. They also run two series trusts.

One "really good opportunity," Young says, are funds with under $5 billion in AUM. Such funds, since they are still relatively small, need more comprehensive assistance in a variety of functions, including legal and compliance services, than the larger firms. He says that many of these firms, as they grow, find that they are graduating away from the situation of start-ups and being dependent on cheap services from bargain vendors. Or, after being in the market for a while, they may find that the services from some of the larger vendors are too a la carte.

"I think many of the providers have developed the attitude of 'We are a factory back office and that is what we do. We are fund accountants. We are custodians. We process stuff,' " he said.

Another particularly good market, Young says, are the funds with less than $2 billion AUM as well as the advisors looking to launch their first fund ever.

"We will continue to do startups," Young said. "There are still many good startups to be done."

For example, two new advisors whom Huntington has recently helped to launch funds include the Denver-based BRC Investment Management and the Leawood, Kansas-based Mitchell Capital Management.

To bolster its services to clients, Huntington is working on developing a web portal for all clients that will allow them to not only keep track of the documents and/or services Huntington is providing for them, executives of the client firms will be able to collaborate with Huntington staff, or amongst each other.

Moreover, to address growing concerns over compliance issues such as fair value accounting, Young hosted meetings with Huntington clients and various data vendors, such as IDC, Bloomberg, and Markit.

"We have a few clients who wanted to spend time with these folks and understand how their shops work," Young said.

Young says that the company plans to grow business organically over the next year, and will hire more staff as more clients come on board.

"We believe there are good opportunities to take business away from other people," he said. 

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