With US asset managers expanding across strategies and markets, Ocorian explains the growing operational demands, from reporting to regulation
Vincent Calcagno, Head of Growth, US, and Lynne Westbrook, Head of Fund Services, US
Ocorian is a global provider of solutions for asset managers including outsourced accounting, operations, and regulatory compliance, fund administration, corporate, capital markets, and fiduciary services. The firm manages more than 20,000 structures on behalf of 9,000 clients, with approximately $370bn assets under administration. It employs 2,000 staff across 25 jurisdictions.
Vincent Calcagno is Head of Growth, US. He was previously Executive Managing Director of E78 Partners Fund Solutions (acquired by Ocorian), and has also held executive roles at Agile Fund Solutions, KPMG, and Rothstein Kass. He’s based in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Lynne Westbrook, Head of Fund Services, US, is based in Dallas, Texas. Before joining Ocorian, Lynne was a Director in Private Markets at Aztec Group. She was also a Vice President at JP Morgan in the UK and worked at LoneStar and SS&C.
Shaun Beaney, Editor of Preqin First Close, asked them about servicing private capital funds, handling complexity, and regulatory change in the US.
Lynne Westbrook: Ocorian is a global provider of services to asset managers, combining international scale and expertise with strong local delivery. Our US expansion builds on our fiduciary heritage and broadens the support we provide to private market managers as they launch, operate, and grow.
Our integrated offering includes fund administration, CFO, and COO solutions, regulatory and compliance support, and tax services. We support clients across their entire lifecycle – from initial structuring and launch, through ongoing operations, expansion, and greater complexity.
Vincent Calcagno: ‘Asset managers in private markets’ is the big heading. They include private equity funds, private credit funds, hedge funds, real estate, and infrastructure. And also family offices that act like asset managers, because they're investing off the family balance sheet, or the family business is throwing off so much cash, they've hired a CIO, and now they operate both a family and an investment management business.
Lynne: We continue to see them mature and institutionalize. But one of the bigger trends is investors are asking more detailed questions. So, we're tightening up reporting timelines. Managers expect greater transparency around fees, liquidity, operations, all those kinds of things. They're under pressure to scale. Then LPs really want to get in and extrapolate the data – really understand and bring connectivity as an investor to all their other funds. There’s pressure to bring those timelines in, bring numbers to the table more regularly and in a much more detailed way.
A lot of managers are consolidating. We see a drop in the number of GPs, a lot of big purchases going on, and some of the bigger funds swallowing up some of the smaller firms.
Vincent: My role, as Head of Growth, US, includes organic growth – getting new clients and growing our business with existing clients, as well as inorganic growth. We've been a very acquisitive organization over our own lifecycle. What I'm seeing, market-facing, is the question of when private equity transactions are going to accelerate. The back half of 2025 looked very promising and the first quarter this year gave everybody hope for 2026. Then transactions fell of the cliff in the second quarter, and so far in the third quarter it's been the same. Companies are finding it hard to get transactions done.
The lack of monetizations by global buyout funds has a trickle-down effect. Ultimately, institutional investors and ultra-high-net-worth investors aren't getting their capital back, so they can't invest in the next fund. That means GPs are stuck on their existing funds. It’s very difficult to raise dollars for a new fund when you haven't returned your LP capital back and shown the IRRs that were expected. That’s probably the biggest challenge facing the market.
Lynne: Risk growth is at the intersection of scale, complexity, and oversight. Regulatory changes are a constant challenge, but we're still seeing an increased focus on operational resilience. Data accuracy and cyber risk are among the big issues we're seeing that are going to have a huge impact on valuation and governance.
Then there’s the quality of investor communications. As managers expand into new strategies, new investor segments, and cross-border structures, they have to look at the quality of investor comms, to make sure we get that comfort level as we work through a lot of these risks.
Vincent: I'll go with the obvious answer. In our view, artificial intelligence is the greatest benefit that's being brought to bear by private equity managers. That could be using AI to source potential portfolio companies or doing a significant amount of analyst work, which used to take hours, days, weeks but now takes minutes to hours.
Lynne mentioned cyber security and I believe the data and privacy risks surrounding AI are in a macro sense understood, but in a micro sense, very few organizations truly understand them. That's where Ocorian looks to be more of a business partner with our asset manager clients, rather than a vendor. We're talking to them about how to be very careful with the implementation of AI to mitigate its risks as it cuts across every single facet of their business.
Vincent: US capital markets are the deepest, most mature in the world. In Asia and Europe you have growth, but the lion's share of private capital is being invested through US companies. Regulatory complexity follows that, because it's where most individual investors need to be protected.
Lynne: In our experience, the biggest challenge in regulatory complexity for North America is fragmentation. Managers who operate here have federal requirements, state-level considerations, and investor expectations – and often there are cross-border fund structures on top of that. The practical challenge is translating those obligations into consistent reporting and governance.
Lynne: So many managers are based in the US, while others from different jurisdictions are looking to expand into the US, and vice versa. That creates challenges but also significant opportunities. What I value most about the private equity space is that it continues to evolve and never stands still. That’s where we come in. Fund managers need a partner – an extension of their team – so they do not have to worry about the operational side and can focus on investing.
Shaun Beaney is Editor of Preqin First Close. It’s quick, easy, and free to subscribe here
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Special thanks to Scott Burke and Debbie Krupski at Ocorian, and Shifra Ansonoff, Kevin Brennan, and Paula Constantine at BlackRock.
The views expressed are the opinions of Ocorian as of October 2026. They do not constitute an endorsement, recommendation, or any other advice, and are subject to change. The content does not necessarily express the views of BlackRock, Preqin, or any of their affiliates. Ocorian is not affiliated with Preqin.