This Week: FactSet, Six, Nordic Capital, State Street, SmartStream, and more

FactSet acquires commodities data specialist

FactSet has acquired BTU Analytics, a provider of data and analytics in the North American renewables, power, oil, and natural gas sectors. This deal allows FactSet to expand its industry-specific, or deep sector, content for investment professionals.

Founded in 2014 and based in Lakewood, Colorado, BTU Analytics delivers actionable investment insights into the energy sectors by collecting raw information in the renewables, power, oil, and natural gas marketplace and transforming that data into cross-commodity analytics. Select BTU content is already available within the FactSet Workstation, with further integration expected over the coming months.

BTU founders Andrew Bradford, Mason Ender, Tony Scott, Kathryn Downey Miller, and their teams have joined FactSet as part of the company’s deep sector content initiative.

Six buys Ultumus to expand data offering

Six is acquiring Ultumus, the London-based international index and ETF data specialist. The acquisition aims at enhancing Six’s data offering and supporting its overall strategy to bring new data to its clients in a fast-growing market, making trading in ETFs more transparent and efficient for customers.

With the addition of Ultumus’s data universe, which covers approximately 7,700 ETF products and accounts for 95% of the market, it is among the largest ETF calculation houses in the world.

Nordic Capital to invest in Duco Technology 

Nordic Capital has announced an agreement to invest in Duco Technology and acquire a majority shareholding from current investors, CME Ventures, Insight Partners, and Eight Roads Ventures. Founder Christian Nentwich will remain as chief executive officer and a shareholder.

Duco provides Software-as-a-Service solutions in the cloud to financial services, insurance and fintech companies dealing with mission-critical data management issues. Duco’s mission is to “make managing data easy” by replacing spreadsheets and technology-heavy solutions in areas like data prep, reconciliation, data quality, and data management with a user-friendly, machine learning-powered platform.

Headquartered in London, Duco has 140 employees in the UK, US, Singapore, and Poland. Duco’s software is used by 14 of the top 30 global banks and asset managers with over $10 trillion in assets.

State Street and First Abu Dhabi Bank ally form custody network in Middle East and North Africa

State Street Corporation and First Abu Dhabi Bank have announced a new strategic alliance that leverages FAB’s regional securities services expertise, incorporating the largest direct custody network in the Middle East and North Africa and State Street’s global strength and capabilities.

The alliance will create a full-service enterprise offering for institutional investors in the region. It will provide them with extensive reach into more than 100 markets around the world, servicing all major listed and unlisted asset classes, delivered by in-country client service teams in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, and Egypt.

Clients will have access to State Street’s full suite of front-, middle-, and back-office capabilities and its data management and analytics solutions, which will integrate with FAB’s regional suite of securities services products, local expertise, and direct custody network.

SmartStream partners with Acadia on collateral management

SmartStream Technologies, a financial transaction lifecycle management solutions provider, has announced its partnership with Acadia, a provider of integrated risk management and margin automation services for the derivatives community. This will enable increased efficiencies for the processing and calculation of interest statements for TLM collateral management customers and their associated counterparties.

SmartStream’s TLM collateral management solution will work alongside Acadia’s Interest Statements workflow, available via its Margin Manager platform. The solution will dispatch interest statements, reconcile, and resolve issues with counterparties in a standardized messaging format. In addition, Acadia’s matching engine will pair statements, highlight discrepancies, and produce final interest statements for clients and their relevant counterparties.

MSCI releases quarterly carbon tracker to measure climate change reduction

The world’s publicly-listed companies must dramatically accelerate climate action if the 1.5°C warming target set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement is to be met, according to a new quarterly Net-Zero Tracker published by MSCI, a provider of critical decision support tools and services for the global investment community.

The MSCI Net-Zero Tracker provides a quarterly gauge of climate change progress across a global universe of 9,300 publicly listed companies based on the MSCI All Country World Investable Market Index. The Net-Zero Tracker aims to bring new levels of transparency to investors and policymakers regarding listed companies’ action on climate, providing aggregate progress on temperature alignment as well as highlighting industry leaders and laggards.

The inaugural Net-Zero Tracker highlights how the annual emissions of listed companies globally are still at the same level as 2013. This includes the 2015 Paris Agreement, which set a goal to limit global warming to below 2°C, with 1.5°C the preferred target.

Tora chosen by DMA Prime for OEMS

Tora has announced that DMA Prime, a division within the DMA Group and a provider of execution and prime brokerage services to institutional asset managers in South Africa, has selected Tora’s order execution management system and outsourced trading service.

DMA Prime chose Tora’s OEMS as part of the expansion of their outsourced dealing services in the region. In addition, the execution desk at DMA Prime has also selected Tora’s outsourced trading desk to supplement their global market reach with Tora traders working in multiple time zones to execute orders.

DMA Prime can now access the Tora FIX network to connect to global broker algo offerings, as well as use Tora’s equity pairs algos to improve execution quality and use the Tora TCA reporting suite.

Calypso onboards two clients onto FX platform

Calypso Technology, a provider of cloud-enabled cross-asset solutions for financial markets, has onboarded two clients onto its front-to-back foreign-exchange platform.

A large regional US bank based in the Northeast will leverage Calypso’s FX cloud solution to support their business, as well as the eDealing and eTreasury portal solutions to drive online business and facilitate a self-service approach to the management of client payments. The deployment expands Calypso’s existing footprint at the bank, increases efficiencies by replacing legacy FX systems, and reduces manual processes.

A Tier-1 financial services organization will leverage Calypso’s middle- and back-office solution to manage their global FX risk, along with settlements, accounting, and nostro balance management.

DTCC partners with Ebix for automated annuity compliance solution

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation is partnering with Ebix, an international supplier of on-demand software and e-commerce services, to deliver an automated annuity compliance solution to significantly increase efficiency, reduce costs, and lower the risks associated with certifying agent compliance for annuity sales. Under this partnership, the firms will link Ebix’s platform, AnnuityNet, with DTCC’s producer management portal (PMP).

DTCC is collaborating with Ebix to provide their AnnuityNet platform users access to PMP’s automated training certification process, allowing carriers and distributors to share, track, and verify producer training completions on a single platform and as mandated by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. In 2020, approximately 70% of annuity application transactions that flowed through DTCC originated on the Ebix AnnuityNet platform.

In this industry-first integration, Ebix will send real-time messages to DTCC’s PMP platform as annuity orders are entered to ensure the agent has completed producer product training and licensing requirements. This automated process eliminates the reliance on manual touchpoints, including the need for broker dealers to review spreadsheets or paper documents to determine whether agents have the proper training and licenses.