AFRICAN REINSURANCE CORPORATION (AFRICA RE)
INVITATION TO TENDER
SELECTION OF A CONSULTING FIRM FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTION
DEADLINE: 29TH JANUARY, 2021
(1.0) BACKGROUND
The African Reinsurance Corporation (“Africa Re” or “The Corporation”) is an international organization with Headquarters in Lagos, Nigeria. Africa Re has six regional offices in Abidjan (Cote d’Ivoire), Cairo (Egypt). Casablanca (Morocco), Lagos (Nigeria). Nairobi (Kenya), and Port Louis (Mauritius). In addition, Africa Re wholly-owns a Subsidiary in South Africa (Africa Re South Africa Limited) and a Retakaful company in Egypt (Africa Retakaful Company).
The Corporation is owned by 41 member states of the African Union (AU), the African Development Bank (AfDB), 111 African insurance and reinsurance companies and 3 leading global Insurance and reinsurance groups.
(2.0) OBJECTIVES
Africa Re is looking for a consulting firm for the implementation of a software solution for its investment transaction processing and reporting activities covering the following functions at the minimum:
- Instrument and portfolio creation, Compliance,
- Cashflow budget/forecast,
- Money market,
- Stock market,
- Bond market,
- Forex,
- Investment budget, and
- Reporting
The consulting firm must have a good, demonstrable track record in the implementation and support for such investment software application.
(3.0) FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
The minimum key functional requirements for the proposed system are summarized in the table below. While responding to this request for proposal, bidders are expected to briefly state how their product meets each of the specific functional requirements listed below:
Detailed Functional Specifications 1 INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT SOLUTION Instruments/Portfolio Creation. 1.01 Ability to create multiple portfolio instruments detailed by type of security, currency and by portfolio manager 1.02 Ability to link specific CUSIP to specific market and this is attached to individual portfolio. 1.03 Ability to charge the following fees (Regulatory fees, Custodian Fees, Management Fees, incentive fees) per portfolio 1.04 Ability to add and withdraw funds, Compliance 1.05 Ability to create different ratings and assign different percentage rate per asset class; these rates are either based on asset value (cost or market) or on principal per investment guidelines. 1.05 Ability to check that the maximum exposure assigned to each counter party does not exceed the Total of the assigned Ratings but can be less. 1.07 Ability to use a benchmark as a performance measure. Cashflow Budget/Forecast 1.08 Ability to generate a cash forecast detailing income, realized gains/losses from holdings and timing from one date to another 1.09 Ability to recognize and generate notifications on maturing money market deals, terminated deals, interest received on bonds and contributions as funds available for investment on the cash forecast. 1.10 Ability of the system to split the available funds for investment into several tranches 1.11 Ability of the system to capture all the quotations given by different counterparties for the proposed deal. Money Market 1.12 Ability to input the quotations from financial institutions and generate deal from approved best quotation and allotment. 1.13 Ability to generate letters to the counterparty and letters to the banks as regards new deals. 1.14 Ability to terminate active transaction with either the Full Settlement or Cancellation option. Stock Market 1.15 Ability to capture a mandate 1.16 Ability to attach a master mandate to a portfolio. 1.17 Ability to capture both Dividend and Bonus corporate actions. Dividend/bonus accrual is to be based on ex-div date. Fixed Income (Bonds) 1.18 Ability to capture a bond master mandate 1.19 Ability to factor in the premium/discount 1.20 Ability to know the last coupon date and calculate the purchase coupon on the master mandate. 1.21 Ability to capture a manually calculated coupon which overrides the system-generated one. 1.22 Ability to generate all GL postings as regards Bond Purchase and disposal, and when premium and purchase coupon is involved the system posts this to their respective accounts. 1.23 Automatic allotment of investment income to the regions based on specified criteria. Forex 1.24 The system has the ability to capture transactions in multiple currencies 1.25 At valuation date, the system values all the funds and report them in USD, with the system being able to access exchange rates from a designated portal or web address 1.26 Ability to perform a forex revaluation and post the gain and loss to the appropriate accounts in the GL Investment Budget/forecast 1.27 Ability to forecast investment income per region, currency and asset class based on specified assumptions 1.28 Ability to forecast investment asset per class, region and currency based on specified assumptions Periodic reports 1.29 Investment cashflow reports based on template provided 1.30 Budget performance report base on template provided 1.31 Investment performance report compared to budget and based on templates to be provided 1.32 Reporting capability for regulatory reports (SAM-South Africa or EU Solvency II capability would be an added advantage) 1.33 Investment performance report compared to benchmark per asset class and per asset manager.
(4.0) TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS
Africa Re currently operates its finance functions using Oracle EBS, the proposed solution therefore should be easy to integrate with the GL module of EBS such as an automatic posting of journals. The ideal solution would be installed in our Cloud data center preferably with Oracle Database, however a Software As A Service can be accepted provided it is easily interfaceable with existing solutions. The interface with EBS could be through a database link or an API, etc. The Corporation already has a data feed interface with top stock provider, so the proposed treasury solution would be preferably integrated with the existing platform.
(5.0) QUALIFICATIONS
The consulting firm must have the following qualifications to be eligible for the assignment.
DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS
(A) Experience of the team
- At least 10 years experience in investment solution implementation
- Successfully advised at least 5 companies on the implementation of investment solutions
- Evidence of competence such as professional certification or degree
(B) Communication language
The proposal must be submitted in English
(C) DEADLINE
The deadline for submission of all proposals is 29 January 2021 (23:59 GMT).
(D) Expected completion of assignment
The deadline for submission of final report is 31 March 2021
(5.0) EVALUATION PROCESS AND SELECTION CRITERIA
Responses to this Request For Proposal will be evaluated and scored based on the following criteria:
- Experience of the main consultant/consulting firm Methodology and approach,
- Financial information Support
- Compliance and conflicts Fees
- Resume of team members
- References and similar tasks
(6.0) PRESENTATION OF TENDER
In order to facilitate the analysis of responses to this RFP, firms are required to prepare their proposals in accordance with the instructions outlined in this section. Firms whose proposals deviate from these instructions would be considered non-responsive and may be disqualified at the discretion of the Corporation.
Proposals should be clear and comprehensive. It should provide a straightforward, concise description of the firm’s capabilities to meet the requirements of the RFP. Emphasis should be laid on accuracy, completeness and clarity of content. All parts, pages, figures and tables should be numbered and clearly labeled. The proposal should be organized into the following major sections:
Section number Section details 1.0 Executive Summary 2.0 Company Background 3.0 Responses to Functional Requirements 4.0 Proposed Application Software and Computing Environment 5.0 Database Software 6.0 System Security 7.0 Implementation Support and Training 8.0 Maintenance Program 9.0 Client References 10.0 Cost Quotations 11.0 Financial Information 12.0 Biographies of team members
(8.0) CLARIFICATION AND AMENDMENT OF REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL
The Consultant or firm may request for clarification only up to 7 days before the proposal submission date. Any request for clarification must be sent in writing by letter or email to the Corporation’s address indicated below. The Corporation will respond by letter or email to such requests and will send written copies of the response (including an explanation of the query but without identifying the source of the inquiry) to all firms that indicated their intention to submit proposals.
Contact for clarification:
Mr. David Muchai
Email: muchai.david@africa-re.com
(9.0) PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
All proposals must be in two (2) copies and delivered at the address quoted below: the deadline for submission is 29 January 2021 (23:59 GMT). Any proposal received by Africa Re after this date will not be appraised.
Submission Address:
The Chairman of the Tender Committee African Reinsurance Corporation Plot 1679 Karamu Kotun Street Victoria Island PMB 12765 Lagos, Nigeria Email: tender@africa-re.com
Yours Sincerely,
Corneille Karekezi
Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer
