Private Equity Accounting Operations Associate

Morgan Stanley • West Conshohocken, PA

73d

About The Position

We're seeking someone to join our team as an Alternative Investment Services Private Equity Portfolio Accounting Operations Associate in IM operations to be responsible for operational and portfolio management support activities for a global private equity program across primary fund investing, co-investing, and secondaries in developed and emerging markets, as well as impact-oriented strategies, including social impact and climate solutions. This position will also involve developing and maintaining external relationships with business stakeholders and third-party service providers to ensure proper support for the vehicles. In the Operations division, we partner with business units across the Firm to support financial transactions, devise and implement effective controls and develop client relationships. This is a Team Specialist position at Director level within Product Support & Services, which is responsible for providing transaction support and managing post execution processes.

Requirements

• Ability to lead by example, work with drive and determination, and put forward challenging views to senior levels
• Comprehensive knowledge and understanding of functional area and operational/compliance policies and procedures of their team
• Ability to operate independently across the majority of day-to-day responsibilities
• Culture carrier across Operations, embracing the Firm's core values and acting as a role model
• Bachelors degree, or equivalent, in Accounting, Finance, or related business field is required for this role
• A minimum of four years of investment accounting experience
• Prior experience in private equity or real estate investment accounting is required.
• Strong organizational and analytical skills and the ability to effectively summarize findings, both verbally and in writing, in a clear and concise manner
• Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced environment with minimal supervision and a high level of attention to detail

Nice To Haves

• Knowledge of hedge fund accounting and/or derivatives, or experience with Investran, Alteryx, Power BI, and / or UI Path is a plus.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a subject matter expert within functional area, working with Team Manager to manage processes, risks and/or projects, proposing and implementing improvements/changes
• Act as key problem solver for area or expertise, applying detailed knowledge to address unique or novel situations, recognize risks and draw out key issues
• Actively monitoring critical investment and investor activity for multiple portfolios and custodian banks to ensure proper settlement of transactions
• Oversee and work effectively with third party service providers in posting activity to the general ledger as well as maintain portfolio activity in AIS's parallel portfolio accounting system, Investran
• Reconciling transactions, valuations, management fees, carried interest calculations, P&L components, and other activity on a monthly/quarterly basis to ensure accuracy
• Verifying accuracy of investor capital account balances and capital activity on a monthly/quarterly basis
• Understand and interpret underlying fund investment financial statements for the purpose of preparing and/or validating valuations and participating in internal fair valuation committee meetings
• Ability to work on complex structures that contain multiple vehicles such as leveraged corporate blockers and AIV's. Develop an understanding of these structures and ensure adequate controls are in place.
• Prepare various carried interest calculations for complex structures and also different waterfall types such as specific investment exclusion. Ability to understand carried interest based on terms as defined in Limited Partnership Agreements.
• Work alongside premier investment teams in support of portfolio management activities, including investment valuation, preparing capital calls and distributions, and other ad hoc requests
• Performing quarterly compliance reporting and highlighting instances in which there may be potential noncompliance with the products governing documents
• Signing-off on net asset value and performance based information on a monthly/quarterly basis

Benefits

• Comprehensive employee benefits and perks in the industry
• Opportunities for career advancement within the company
• Support for employees and their families at every point along their work-life journey

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Industry: Securities, Commodity Contracts, and Other Financial Investments and Related Activities
• Education Level: Bachelor's degree
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees