E&Y hires fund admin consultancy firm

• Shawn Pride, the head of P&L Consulting Group, along with her former team, have joined Ernst & Young's financial services office in New York and Dallas. P&L helps private equity firms select and implement fund administration systems. 

• ACA Compliance, which provides GPs compliance guidance, has opened up an office in Hong Kong, it's first in Asia. 

• Vistra has opened an office in San Francisco. The firm provides GPs fund formation, administration and accounting services.

• Richard Colton has been named head of Wells Fargo’s mergers and acquisitions practice. The practice provides clients with insurance, risk, due diligence, and employee benefit services. Previously co-founder of Aon's mergers and acquisitions group, Colton, will be based in New York.

• Patrick Pilch has joined accounting firm BDO Consulting as a managing director in its New York office. Formerly of PwC, he specializes in restructuring, turnaround, interim management and M&A advisory services to organizations in the healthcare industry.  

• Investment services firm BNY Mellon is offering two Form PF services, which US regulators will use to detect any systemic risk posed by SEC registered private equity firms. Clients can select either a premium service where BNY gathers all the necessary data to fill out the form on clients' behalf, or can fill out the form for clients using supplied data.  

• Deloitte has appointed Robert O’Brien to lead its global real estate group. O’Brien, already a vice chairman with Deloitte in the US, will also continue as the US real estate leader.

• Fund services firm Ipes has appointed Sharon Alvarez as head of risk and compliance for the group. She remains a director in the firm’s Guernsey office.

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• Research firm Edison Investment Research has added three analysts to its London-based team. Private equity firms often utilize the firm's research for commercial due diligence and benchmarking. Andrew Mitchell joins Edison as a financial analyst from Charles Stanley Securities, Tom Grady joins as a technology analyst from PwC and Paul Hickman joins as a supervisory analyst from brokerage firm Peel Hunt. 
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• Fund administration group Augentius has launched the Augentius Depositary Company. The business will provide depositary services for UK private equity firms subject to the Alternative Investment Fund Managers directive. 

• Derek Braddock and Bill Matthews formerly of recruitment firm HigdonBraddockMatthews have launched BraddockMatthews, an executive search firm focused exclusively on the asset management and financial services industries.