In Conversation with Convergence, Episode 45: George Evans and Georges Archibald of Apex Group Discuss Global Growth and Tokenization

Who is Georges Archibald, and how did he get to Apex?

George Evans welcomes listeners to the 45th episode of In Conversation with Convergence, a monthly podcast featuring clients and special guests. He introduces Georges Archibald, whom he calls an old friend, chief commercial officer at Apex Group and a recognized expert in the alternatives industry. Archibald thanks Convergence for sponsoring Apex's events, and at the end of the episode Evans thanks Apex for being a great partner and client.

Archibald says he started in prime brokerage, where he spent the better part of a decade with large providers, then moved to fund administration about 15 years ago. He says he has worked across alternatives, starting in hedge funds and extending into private equity, and across everything from UCITS funds through 40 Act mutual funds. He says he is struck by the depth of investment products now available and by what the alternative wrapper offers in access, diversification, and innovation.

What is Apex Group?

Evans says there are about 660 fund administrators at last count and that Apex's rise to a dominant market share has been impressive to watch. Archibald says Apex has been in business 21 years and is going on $3.4 trillion in assets under administration. He says its services go beyond a traditional fund administrator, covering middle office through back office, plus services such as management company (ManCo) services for the front office, so Apex supports the investment lifecycle from discovery through investment to investor reporting.

Archibald says democratization is creating structures that give a broader set of constituents access, and that Apex offers data tools that help asset owners balance a portfolio view of their exposures and manage to their constituencies more in real time. He says Apex operates in 53 countries with over 100 locations, serving money center jurisdictions and growth regions, including the Middle East, South America, and strategic locations in Africa and Asia.

How does Apex approach acquisitions?

Evans says Apex has led the way with a robust acquisition strategy and asks how it decides on the right acquisitions. Archibald says founder Peter Hughes has been the linchpin and architect of the strategy, which aims to partner with growth clients who want to include Apex in their partnership strategy. To do that, he says, Apex needed to serve them globally and across their product requirements.

Archibald gives private credit as a product example: Apex was a big investor in private credit infrastructure and is now positioned to partner with large asset managers on it. He gives geography as the other lens: Apex's latest acquisition, a small one in Chile, let it serve larger asset managers there who wanted to remove some vendor risk and gain scale with a vendor offering a broad set of solutions. He says Apex has also built a great deal organically, and that bringing the pieces together creates a differentiated product. Evans says only a handful of top-tier fund administrators can support global asset flows.

What did they say about private credit and private market infrastructure?

Evans says the private equity market has moved on from traditional leveraged buyouts, which are still strong, to private credit, where he sees the growth. Archibald says banks lend across one portion of the capital structure and are happy there, while another portion is not lent against or is served less efficiently, and that is where private credit comes in. He says he does not see that abating and only sees institutions looking to deploy more capital into private credit, and that Apex's offering covers both the infrastructure and the positioning to help managers differentiate themselves.

Asked to go deeper on private market infrastructure and standards, Archibald says a lot of it is data. He cites benchmarking tools that let a manager benchmark itself and create value for its stakeholders, and tools around events. He thanks Convergence for being front and center as a sponsor of Apex's events business, and says Apex sees opportunity on the technical side and on the human capital side, in making impactful connections.

What is Apex Invest, and how do its events work?

Evans asks about Apex Invest and its calendar. Archibald says Apex is not a conference business: it puts together curated events whose coverage ratio is very different, because the profit is in helping firms develop relationships, not in running a profitable conference. He says many conferences have multiple types of participants, while Apex keeps events curated, with more investors targeting fewer managers, so investors can form relationships where they see fit, run their own due diligence processes, and follow through where they have interest.

Evans notes Apex held events last year in places such as Las Vegas and the Bahamas and asks about 2025. Archibald says he sees a lot of growth in the Middle East: Apex had one in Saudi Arabia and will have events in Abu Dhabi, the Cayman Islands (he thinks in April), and Switzerland. He says Apex wants the right types of assets in the room and a global reach so participants get geographic nuance. He says about $4.3 trillion in assets was represented at an Abu Dhabi event, and Evans notes that a manager would be hard pressed to get access to that much capital in a couple of days anywhere else. Archibald says the events business has exploded in size and impact.

How does Apex approach digital assets and tokenization?

Evans asks about digital assets and Bitcoin and how monetary policy could create opportunity. Archibald says Apex's thinking centers on a digital asset framework, which makes it easier to monetize the framework and manage the business. As an asset servicer, he says, Apex wants to build infrastructure that lets managers transact more efficiently and to create value for clients. He says Apex helps funds tokenize assets or interests such as LP interests.

As an example, Archibald cites the public announcement of a Hamilton Lane fund done with Sygnum Bank. He says it allowed smaller-denomination purchases inside the Sygnum Bank infrastructure, giving more access into the feeder vehicle, lowering cost and increasing efficiency without changing the compliance framework, only the friction and cost of doing business.

Archibald says the market side has not come through yet and that he expects a new US administration to let the market framework and infrastructure for digital assets evolve, allowing further fractionalization. He says the technology already exists to put an asset, or a capital stack, on a blockchain and trade pieces of it, and that Apex is spending much of its time on use cases. He calls it early days, including for Bitcoin ETFs, and says the next value will come from tokenized assets that can be traded more fluidly. Evans says the new administration has made its bullish views on digital assets and crypto abundantly clear in the last 30 to 60 days, and suggests Archibald return for a session on digital assets.

How does Archibald differentiate Apex?

Asked for the elevator pitch for a global asset manager choosing among administrators, Archibald gives one reason: partnership. He says Apex is an extension of the client's team, offering people, jurisdictional access and expertise, data, and investment in technology that benefits clients in scaling and going to market. He cites the Apex Invest GP-LP portal, where LPs discover GPs after events, a digital onboarding tool for investors, and digital tools for managing investors.

He says Apex recently rolled out Tempo, a communication and workflow tool he describes as a digital hallway between the client and Apex, creating one ecosystem to communicate and understand workflows together and helping managers launching a fund, launching a product, or entering a new geography. He says Apex thinks with an engineer's brain and asks teams how they would design a process if starting from scratch, since much of the industry's work was designed around antiquated systems.

How did the conversation close?

Evans says that from his vantage point he sees many of Apex's competitors and that it has been impressive to see what Apex has done in a short time. He says Apex has been a great partner and client, on the leading edge of many of the products Convergence sells, which he says is part of its culture. Archibald says Apex appreciates the partnership.

Which figures did Evans and Archibald cite?

Figures stated in Episode 45, January 2025

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Topics Covered