Sales, Contracts, and Alliances

London-based Schroder Investment Management has chosen Eagle Investment Systems’ PACE application, a Web-based portfolio management system, to calculate performance and attribution and consolidate firm-wide reporting across its 39 locations. Schroders selected PACE after an extensive due diligence period.

"We wanted to make sure the Eagle suite could scale to handle multiple sites and support our reporting requirements," says Marc Nield, executive director of institutional IT at Schroders.

Eagle PACE can extract, scrub, enrich and store investment data from several sources in one data repository. It also provides access to leading industry interfaces from trading, pricing, analytics, custodial and accounting systems.

The Eagle Portal complements Eagle PACE by offering a simplified retrieval of real-time investment data through Web and wireless devices.

Clover Capital Management, headquartered in Rochester, New York, has gone live with Indata’s IMS for Windows system. The IMS suite consists of portfolio management and reporting, trade order management, performance measurement and attribution and billing modules.

The system assists buy-side firms with STP and the establishment of a T+1 environment. Clover signed with San Diego-based Indata after a thorough review of systems on the market, including products from Advent Software and Financial Models Company.

Dennis Slimmer, Clover’s information systems manager, says: "We selected Indata for its system architecture and the fact that it was the only vendor that could provide us with internal STP based on a common Microsoft SQL server database platform.

"It was important for us to have a system that was as strong in front-office functionality -- such as trade order management -- as it was in back-office functions like portfolio management and performance," he adds.

Citizens Financial Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of UK-based Royal Bank of Scotland, has selected SunGard Trading and Risk Systems’ BancWare application for asset and liability management, data management and funds transfer pricing.

Citizens Financial, with around $53 billion in assets, selected BancWare because of its comprehensive instrument coverage, scalability, ease of use and ability to easily customize reports to process and management requirements.

"SunGard demonstrated how its BancWare application is suited to helping us achieve our goals in the shortest amount of time while increasing our productivity," says John Gavin, senior vice-president, asset liability management at Citizens.

"BancWare allows us to use the same data throughout our organization, which allows us to spend more time on important things like analysis, as opposed to data input and cleansing," he adds.

Brut, a New York-based alternative trading system that operates an ECN for the trading of Nasdaq- and other exchange-listed securities, has completed its Fix link with SunGard Trading and Risk Systems’ Decalog trade order management system. Decalog is a front- and middle-office STP system for investment management firms.

The link was developed in conjunction with SunGard, a Brut partner. Through the SunGard Transaction Network, Decalog users will be able to trade Nasdaq and US exchange-listed equities via Brut, taking advantage of Brut’s Sponsorship Program.

The program seeks to align the interests of buy- and sell-side market participants by enabling institutional investors to trade electronically via Brut and repatriate a portion of their commission dollars to a sponsoring broker-dealer of their choice -- thereby retaining valuable brokerage services. It has grown from having 11 to more than 70 participating institutional clients over the past five months.

Brut also partners with Eze Castle, Moxy, Macgregor, Bridge Trading and FlexTrade.

Gulf International Bank’s (GIB) asset management division has chosen the TMS2000 investment management system from Denmark-based SimCorp to support its asset management operations in London. GIB, which has $7 billion under management, needed a single integrated system to support its entire front-office operation for equities, fixed income and hedge funds.

"In our review of the market, we looked at 15 systems," says David Waite, head of asset management at GIB. "SimCorp’s TMS2000 was the only one capable of providing us with the full instrument coverage we required."

The bank sees a number of benefits to adopting a single integrated system, including improved STP, enhanced operating efficiency, reduced operational risk and better client reporting.

The order is for a 20-user license, and the system is due to be fully implemented in GIB’s London office in the first quarter of 2003.

Loomis Sayles and Co, a Boston-based money management firm and wholly owned subsidiary of CDC IXIS Asset Management, has chosen Thomson Financial's First Call Analyst application to support its investment decisions and streamline its research process.

The product, which has been integrated with Loomis Sayles' internal analytical system for portfolio managers, provides real-time, integrated research and analytics for institutional investors worldwide, including functionality to support customized reports and the inclusion of proprietary reports and analysis.

According to Thomson, the integration of First Call Analyst enhances Loomis Sayles’ portfolio managers' experience, enabling them to access Thomson's real-time First Call research notes and reports, analyst estimates and more, through a single click within their internal system.

"We wanted to enhance our internal system by integrating information vital to our investment research process, including real-time First Call sell-side research reports and analyst forecast measures," says Mark Weiss, vice-president of Loomis Sayles.

"The First Call Analyst integration that Thomson developed for us streamlines our research and analysis workflow, while providing us with seamless access to the institutional content we need to successfully identify investment opportunities," he adds.

Amalgamated Banks of South Africa (ABSA), one of Southern Africa’s biggest financial institutions, has selected activebank² from London-based vendor Financial Objects to improve efficiencies across its Singapore treasury operations.

The implementation is aimed at delivering flexible portfolio management, increased trading capacity and access to a variety of internet-based tools, while tightening ABSA’s control across its treasury functions. Activebank² provides real-time mark-to-market profit and loss for all instruments, dealers and counterparties, as well as market risk management incorporating real-time value-at-risk, net present value and ‘what if’ scenarios.

David Meadows, ABSA’s general manager, says: "What was particularly important to us was the ability to integrate with our general ledger systems, and activebank² provided us with much-needed comfort in this arena."

US-based Nuveen Investments has contracted Boston-based State Street to provide a variety of investment services for 130 of Nuveen’s funds, representing about $45 billion in assets. The transition of the business is expected to be complete by the end of 2002.

State Street will provide custody and fund accounting, and Boston Financial Data Services (BFDS) will provide transfer agency and shareholder services to Nuveen’s family of funds.

Nuveen chose State Street and BFDS based on their combined abilities to service mutual and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from shareholder servicing to custody and accounting.

"We chose State Street based on its proven expertise in supporting both closed-end ETFs and traditional mutual funds, as well as its ability to provide quality service to investors and financial advisors," says Steve Foy, vice-president of Nuveen.

BFDS is a jointly owned subsidiary of State Street and DST Systems.

Reuters, and a California-based subsidiary, Tibco Software, have been contracted by BNP Paribas Securities Services (BP2S) to help the French bank deploy Tibco’s ActiveEnterprise suite to assist with STP.

BP2S opted for ActiveEnterprise as the architecture to migrate its applications and business processes to after an extensive technology review of a number of enterprise application integration (EAI) platforms.

The suite comprises a line of EAI products that assist in automating business processes and lowering the total cost of product ownership by creating an integrated network of applications, databases and information.

Toronto-base d TD Securities, the wholesale banking arm of TD Bank Financial Group, has announced plans to develop a derivatives trading and real-time risk management system with New York-based vendor NumeriX. NumeriX, which provides software support for cross-asset derivatives pricing and risk management, will act as the project’s architect and general contractor.

Mike MacBain, vice-chairman of TD Securities’ debt capital markets division, says: "This system will enable TD Securities to consolidate information from key areas of our firm to provide an accurate real-time risk view to both our trading desks and management team."

MacBain says the trading platform will be released in several phases and will be implemented within three years. The project includes credit, fixed-income, and equity derivatives.

FXall, the London-based online portal for global foreign exchange (FX) trading, has launched a Web-based FX tool the firm claims is tailored to meet the key requirements of group treasury operations for buy-side customers. By implementing STP for forex trades, FXall’s tailored solution is set to deliver significant efficiency gains and cost savings to global enterprises.

FXall began its customized FX trading and information program by creating an FX platform for global food and beverage group Nestlé, benefiting more than 200 connected users in 100 locations around the world. Members of Nestlé’s group treasury operations are now able to share proprietary research, news and market forecasts, in addition to the content and features of FXall’s Information Center. They also have access to FXall’s comprehensive set of FX trading tools.

Simcorp, an investment management vendor based in Denmark, has released version 3.1 of its TMS2000 investment management system. Enhancements include support for front- and middle-office operations, with a risk factor analysis module and a fixed-income performance attribution module. Other highlights include a Web deal-capture module, new instruments coverage and functionality to support fund decomposition.

The risk factor analysis module consists of bond and interest rate factor analysis. New features include switch/hedge functionality, which allows portfolio risk to be rebalanced or changed in line with predefined requirements. It also enables barbell strategies to be carried out.

The fixed-income performance attribution module enables users to decompose changes in market value. In performance calculations, business-class-level functionality can be applied, and a wide range of key ratio, attribution and fixed-income fields have been added.

The Web deal-capture module is an application programming interface enabling the front office to tailor the front-end of its system -- which is used for Web trading -- and integrate it with the functionality of TMS2000 to meet the specific needs of a customer’s trading operation.

Netik, a New York-based supplier of transaction, information management and financial messaging products, has announced that TurboSwift, its low-cost accredited Swift gateway, has completed certification testing with Swift for the SwiftNet messaging service. The product has been certified on the Windows platform and will be certified on Unix platforms during August.

The Swift network is moving from X.25 connectivity to IP connectivity, starting in August and continuing to the end of 2004. The migration is mandatory for all Swift customers and is organized around a country-based schedule published by Swift. All existing customers will need to migrate by the end of 2004, when access via X.25 will no longer be supported.

TurboSwift Version 7.0 provides the ability to connect to the service over SwiftNet. X.25 connectivity is retained, giving customers the greatest flexibility in managing their migration. A key feature of the new interface to SwiftNet is to allow existing customers to remain on their hardware platform of choice.

Brainpower, a Netherlands-based supplier of enterprise-wide investment analytics, risk attribution and decision-support systems, and Reuters have concluded an agreement giving current and prospective Reuters Investor and Reuters Market Monitor clients the option of using Brainpower’s analytics tools and mutual funds data from Lipper, a Reuters company.

The new offer will be based on Brainpower’s NetXceed platform, using previously integrated Lipper mutual funds databases, both US and international. Brainpower will help Reuters design product-specific Web-based displays to maximize the analysis potential and return on investment of the data supplied.

Reuters Investor provides information for private and institutional investment portals, and the Reuters Market Monitor suite delivers broad coverage of the global markets including securities, fixed income, foreign exchange and commodity prices and news.

HelioGraph, a London-based STP and financial messaging specialist, has announced a distribution agreement with Tokyo-based financial IT supplier New Intelligent Workstation Systems (NIWS).

NIWS, which was established in 1992 as a joint venture between IBM Japan and Nomura Research Institute, will start offering HelioGraph’s STP product range to its Japanese clients from July.

Commenting on the partnership, Amery Thomas, HelioGraph’s chief executive, says the Japanese market represents a key milestone in the continuation of the firm’s global growth strategy.

PFPC, the largest full-service mutual fund transfer agent in the US and the country’s second largest mutual fund accounting and administrative services provider, has extended its 12-year relationship with New York-based Seligman Data Corp. Seligman is the shareholder services agent for the Seligman Group of Funds, one of the oldest fund families in the US.

As part of a new three-year contract, PFPC will continue providing mutual fund services, work management technology and remote transfer agent capabilities for Tri-Continental Corporation and the Seligman Group of Funds. The firm will continue to offer offering more than 60 portfolios, as well as a range of retirement services, to 1.5 million shareholder accounts, representing in total around $13.5 billion in assets.

Macgregor, a Boston-based supplier of trade order management systems (OMS) and Fix network services to the buy side, has formed an alliance with integration specialist dbConcert. Macgregor will use dbConcert’s technical staff during OMS implementations.

"With the rapid growth in our client base, we decided to tap high-quality third-party expertise and seamlessly integrate them into our project teams," says Rob Flatley, Macgregor’s executive vice-president of sales and services, Americas. "Through this agreement, we can expedite the integration and deployment process and deliver an enhanced customer experience."

Paris-based portfolio and risk management specialist Sophis and New York-based TradingScreen, a provider of trading connectivity for traditional and alternative asset managers, have finalized a partnership that will yield services covering the full life cycle of the investment process, from electronic order routing to back-office processing.

Interfaces between Sophis and TradingScreen systems will enable clients to benefit from an integrated service offering global order execution across products; trading strategy automation; Fix connectivity with more than 40 destinations; multi-asset portfolio management for classic and alternative investment managers; real-time risk management benchmarking and performance analysis; and electronic confirmations, payment instructions and accounting entries.

"Sophis will spread this agreement to its asset management and investment banking activities and will thus be able to propose to its 1,200 users a direct market connection thanks to TradingScreen," says Hervé Vinciguerra, Sophis chief executive.