Cusip Generates 4,000 Hedge Fund Identifiers, Recruits Beta Clients for Cabre Identifier

NEW YORK—Cusip Global Services (CGS), part of Standard & Poor’s, has completed an exercise aimed at increasing the number of Cusip identifiers for hedge funds and fund of funds, with the number of identifiers now exceeding 4,000, officials tell Inside Reference Data.

CGS, which has recently focused on increasing the number of asset classes covered by Cusip identifiers, partnered with hedge fund information provider HedgeFund.Net last year to improve Cusip coverage of this market.

Under the partnership, CGS receives direct Cusip requests from the hedge fund community and additional hedge fund information from HedgeFund.Net, enabling CGS to identify funds, issues and issuers, that need to be identified. "Prior to our relationship with HedgeFund.Net, legacy funds in the Cusip database did not have a specific flag identifying them as a hedge fund," says New York-based Scott Preiss, CGS.

The group started an open enrollment program this winter, and by March there were around 600 new Cusips generated. By the end of May, there will be upwards of 4,000 Cusip identifiers for hedge funds and fund of funds. “It’s been a simultaneous effort of our staff to go back and flag these offerings,” says Preiss.

The next step will be for CGS to produce a segmented file of Cusip identifiers for hedge funds and fund of funds. New York-based Matthew Bastian, CGS, says: “We have the format laid out, but we do want to get critical mass before we create a commercial offering.”

Cabre Reaches Beta Phase

Meanwhile, CGS also teamed up with counterparty data vendor Avox last year to create a unique entity identifier, and this initiative is now moving into a beta phase.

"We have identified a small number of beta clients to use and embed Cabres internally" says Preiss, explaining that this process will help the group determine if the identifier and its coverage meet customer requirements.

There are currently nearly 300,000 Cabre identifiers, and the number is growing every day. Preiss says it is widely acknowledged that there is a need for up to 500,000 global entities to be identified by a unique entity identifier.