Granite Investment Partners, a Los Angeles-based RIA, has chosen SEI as the back- and middle-office service provider for its separate accounts, having recently expanded with the addition of nine investment professionals.

As part of the relationship, SEI will provide Granite with account administration, trade processing, account and trade reconciliation, performance calculation and reporting, investment accounting, manager trade support, daily and month-end performance measurement, and end-client reporting and billing.

Following an expansion whereby Granite brought in a team of managers along with a number of their clients, it had to scale up its infrastructure quickly, said Geoff Edelstein, principal and portfolio manager. The firm decided to outsource because it wants to focus on investment management and client services, he added.

Granite managed approximately $479 million in assets for institutions and high net worth individuals as at 30 June 2011, in its core large-cap, small-cap and balanced strategies.