British Business Bank

Steel City House, Steel City House, 2 West Street

Sheffield

S1 2GQ

UK

Contact person: Procurement

Telephone: +44 1142127877

E-mail: procurement@british-business-bank.co.uk

NUTS: UKE32

Internet address(es)

Main address: www.british-business-bank.co.uk

II.1.1) Title

II.1.2) Main CPV code

72000000

II.1.3) Type of contract

Services

II.1.4) Short description

The Authority has awarded an investment management system (“IMS”) contract ("Contract") to BlackRock, relying on the exemption in Regulation 32(2)(b)(ii) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 to use the negotiated procedure without prior publication, on the basis that competition is absent for technical reasons. The IMS will allow the Authority to manage the full investment administration cycle of its debt and equity portfolio (“Portfolio”). The Contract covers implementation, migration support, professional services, licensing, and maintenance.

II.1.6) Information about lots

This contract is divided into lots: No

II.1.7) Total value of the procurement

Value excluding VAT: 890 000.00  GBP

IV.1.1) Type of procedure

Award of a contract without prior publication of a call for competition

Justification for selected award procedure:

The works, supplies or services can be provided only by a particular economic operator for the following reason: absence of competition for technical reasons

Explanation

The Authority has awarded an investment management system (“IMS”) contract ("Contract") to BlackRock, relying on the exemption in Regulation 32(2)(b)(ii) of the Public Contracts Regulations 2015 to use the negotiated procedure without prior publication, on the basis that competition is absent for technical reasons. The IMS will allow the Authority to manage the full investment administration cycle of its debt and equity portfolio (“Portfolio”). The Contract covers implementation, migration support, professional services, licensing, and maintenance. The Authority considered that the Contract can be supplied only by BlackRock through its eFront Invest solution, as BlackRock is uniquely able to provide certain mandatory requirements of the Authority's specification. The Authority reached that conclusion after the following due diligence process: •Engagement of an external consultancy with expertise in this area to prepare a market analysis of options available against the Authority’s service requirements and technical specification •An “RFI” was undertaken with a shortlist of suppliers identified by the external consultancy (“Suppliers”) to understand the technical capability and compatibility of the systems with the Authority’s mandatory requirements and the unique breadth of its Portfolio both in its current and future state •An options report was prepared by the external consultancy which identified eFront Invest as the only solution able to meet the Authority’s mandatory requirements, specifically in relation to fee and waterfall modelling, API connectivity to ensure effective data ingestion and system integration and the level of coverage required to support the Portfolio •The Authority’s business architect completed a comparative analysis of the Suppliers’ sample offerings. This analysis concluded that eFront Invest offers a solution that can support the Portfolio, and that it has inbuilt functionality to support fee and waterfall modelling, flagging that these are mandatory requirements This due diligence established that alternative suppliers could not meet the Authority’s mandatory requirements. Specifically, BlackRock is uniquely able to provide fee and waterfall modelling, API connectivity to ensure effective data ingestion and system integration, and the level of coverage required to support the Portfolio. Moreover, the only available alternatives to eFront Invest would have incurred unacceptable operational and accuracy risks including: •incurring operational and data accuracy risks due to managing multiple software solutions and using manual data entry input •A disaggregated solution increasing the risk of error •Inability to deliver on reporting and wider obligations to UK Government •The incompatibility of the alternative solutions to the Authority’s underlying infrastructure could have impacted the traceability and transparency levels required to meet audit and reporting requirements which could also have incurred reputational risk •The lack of a full-service solution across all current and future requirements would have created the need to maintain and potentially increase manual steps and End User Computing Solutions outside operational risk tolerance The Authority is confident that for the outlined reasons no reasonable alternative or substitute exists to eFront Invest. The Authority is also confident that its specification is reasonable and was not been artificially narrowed or constructed in such a way that only eFront Invest would be able to meet its requirements.

IV.1.8) Information about Government Procurement Agreement (GPA)

The procurement is covered by the Government Procurement Agreement: No

IV.2.1) Previous publication concerning this procedure

Notice number in the OJ S:

2023/S 000-008087

eFront Limited

03650489

12 Throgmorton Avenue

London

UK

NUTS: UK

The contractor is an SME: No

VI.4.1) Review body

VI.4.2) Body responsible for mediation procedures

VI.4.4) Service from which information about the review procedure may be obtained