This Week: ISI buys EPFR; Bloomberg, Warsaw Exchange, Fenergo and more

ISI buys EPFR, rebrands in buy-side push

ISI Emerging Markets, a provider of macroeconomic data specializing in emerging markets, has acquired fund flows data provider EPFR for an undisclosed sum. The company has also rebranded itself as ISI Markets, reflecting its greater coverage of developed markets as well as emerging economies.

ISI, which has traditionally focused on providing economic data about emerging Asian markets, has been expanding over recent years to increase its coverage of other markets around the world and to focus more on growing adoption among corporate clients, asset managers, and hedge funds.

EPFR has also expanded its coverage, moving beyond funds flows to cover liquidity flows between different fund types and asset classes, as well as underlying securities. ISI CEO Stephen Pulley tells WatersTechnology that EPFR fits well with this strategy. It helps investors get exposure to specific instruments and ensures they’re not over-exposed to a particular asset or security.

“This is a transformative, strategic deal that brings us a unique, proprietary dataset that helps users to understand investor sentiment and connect the dots to form the macro picture … and their corollary effect on asset class movements,” Pulley says.

In addition, the acquisition of EPFR helps expand ISI’s client base and geographical reach because of EPFR’s strong client relationships in the US, UK, and continental Europe and its presence among buy-side firms.

ISI is owned by private equity parent Montagu, which bought EPFR from previous owner Informa in 2022. The acquisition follows a commercial agreement that has been in place since earlier this year, under which the vendors embedded “substantial” amounts of EPFR data into ISI’s CEIC economic database for use by economic analysts and researchers.

“We got to know each other in some detail through that commercial partnership. The relationship got a great response, and we saw increased appetite from clients to be able to take advantage of it,” Pulley says. “In my two-and-a-half years at ISI, I’ve worked with Montagu on strategy, and as we’ve developed that and evolved the business into a global data offering and increased our exposure to the buy side, this became a natural synergistic acquisition target.”

Going forward, ISI will continue to offer EPFR as a standalone product but will also continue to provide its data in CEIC, and to provide ISI’s economic data as part of EPFR. And while the company’s initial focus is on integrating EPFR and its data, Pulley says ISI may buy other companies and datasets in the future.

“EPFR was the asset that had a strong strategic fit with ISI. Longer term, we have an M&A strategy, and a list of potential targets.”

He believes that plenty of opportunities exist to create value—through organic growth and bolt-ons—by providing specialist insights into investment flows between emerging and developed markets.

“The reason I joined the company was the mission to illuminate the opportunity in the world’s most important and fastest-growing markets, which are home to almost half of the world’s population. Some have double the GDP growth rate of western markets,” he says. “Other vendors focus on the core markets, but that leaves a lot of opportunity for us to take advantage of this growth and provide transparency into the flow of investment into these markets. And this kind of data will be increasingly important to people making investment decisions over the next 10 to 20 years.”

Gravis taps Bloomberg AIM for front-office workflows

UK-based asset manager Gravis Capital Management, which manages £3 billion (~$3.8) of assets, is to use Bloomberg’s AIM order and investment management solution to add operational intelligence to areas of its front office, including pre-trade processes, order generation workflow, and fund holdings reconciliation. Gravis is an existing user of Bloomberg’s PORT portfolio and risk analytics solution, which—coupled with AIM—will provide a front-to-back workflow that will enable the firm to better manage and scale its portfolios. Bloomberg will also provide the firm with services to assist with inbound asset servicer integrations and data reconciliation.

Warsaw Exchange sets November rollout for new trading platform

The Warsaw Stock Exchange will roll out its new WATS (Warsaw Automated Trading System) exchange platform on November 10 this year. Officials say the new system will significantly improve the quality and efficiency of exchange operations by providing advanced functionalities and making trading more reliable and secure. The exchange has posted details of the implementation schedule for members on a dedicated website.

Clearwater debuts commercial paper platform

Investment management, accounting, and reporting solutions provider Clearwater Analytics has released a new tool, CP Issuance, for firms that issue short-term, unsecured debt, known as commercial paper, which the vendor says replaces processes that relied heavily on manual data aggregation, spreadsheets, and key-man risk.

The new tool provides a modern workflow for issuing commercial paper; a rates research module for generating customized reports and benchmarks; a reporting engine for generating dashboards displaying bespoke reports containing balance sheets, exposures, and performance; and an issuance tracker that monitors the intraday issuance process in real time.

Proven begins Fenergo trade monitoring rollout in digital AML push

Cayman Islands-based Proven Bank (formerly known as Fidelity Bank Cayman) is deploying data management, KYC, and client lifecycle management software vendor Fenergo’s transaction monitoring solution to streamline its anti-money laundering process. Officials say that by automating several previously manual AML processes, the bank will be able to enhance its operational efficiency, reduce false positives, and focus its compliance resources on higher-risk clients. As a result of reallocating resources from manual tasks, the bank can focus on cross-selling and offering tailored products based on the data insights from Fenergo’s platform. The move is part of a bigger digital transformation initiative at the bank’s offshore locations, starting with its Cayman Islands location before expanding to its St. Lucia operation and its Proven Wealth affiliate in Jamaica.

Peru’s Credicorp goes live on SaaS Temenos Mutlifonds

Peru-based investment manager Credicorp Capital has gone live on a Software-as-a-Service version of banking technology vendor Temenos’ Multifonds Global Accounting and Global Investor Servicing platform, which now runs the back-office management of 71 funds on a single instance of the platform. Deploying Multifonds will allow Credicorp to handle larger transaction volumes with greater stability, and to introduce new product lines and expand service channels more quickly. Using a SaaS model enables the firm to scale elastically according to business demand, and to reduce total cost of ownership because infrastructure upgrades are part of the SaaS service.