REPORTTECHNOLOGY 2022 HEDGE WEEK
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Another area in which technology is providing efficiency is treasury management. Often neglected by hedge fund managers, there are significant cost savings to be made within this function. Technological change cannot be ignored and embracing the potential these tools provide can see hedge fund managers enhance their service, alpha generation and business overall.
LEVELLING UP TECHNOLOGY ADDS NEW DIMENSIONS TO HEDGE FUND BUSINESSES Published by: Global Fund Media, 8 St James’s Square, London SW1Y 4JU, UK ©Copyright 2021 Global Fund Media Ltd. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the Investmentpublisher. Warning: The information provided in this publication should not form the sole basis of any investment decision. No investment decision should be made in relation to any of the information provided other than on the advice of a professional financial advisor. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. The value and income derived from investments can go down as well as up. Inside this report... 04 ARCESIUM 07 SENTIEO 09 SIGTECH 12 UMB FUND SERVICES 15 SS&C ADVENT 18 OMEGA SYSTEMS 21 CASSINI SYSTEMS 24 METAFRAME TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS 27 KAYENTA 28 DIRECTORY
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Hedge fund managers have looked to harness the power of technology and apply a variety of solutions to benefit their business in different ways. From the shifting needs of credit managers as they expand into new asset classes, to building a robust data management infrastructure, technology has adapted to support growth in the hedge fund arena. Such solutions can also assist in providing more effective collaboration between teams and also offer more efficient PB margining. They can also be used to bridge the gap between quantitative investment methodologies and the more discretionary approaches.
Technology has become an intrinsic part of lives and due to the pace of change and progress in this area, the need for constant assessment, updates and education is critical.
INTRODUCTION & CONTENTS TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022 3
This development means hedge funds and their peers now have more diverse data ingestion needs, moving from only working with files and APIs to having semi-structured and unstructured data from exercises like PDF parsing, website scraping, and the like.
The proliferation of data is now an accepted fact. As growth projection rates of data hit 60% year on year, building a solid data foundation and knowing how to make the most effective use of that data becomes a critical focal point that will help a business achieve its broader goals.“Hedge funds need to have an ambitious plan to keep up with the growth in data,” advises Alex Dobson, senior vice president of product at Arcesium. “As hedge funds continue to converge with other segments, like private equity, their need to support the increasing variety of data sources continues to evolve.”
“These growth rates can look intimidating. Firms need to be ready to build their data ingestion processes for scale,” Dobson recommends. The next stage in the data lifecycle managers need to focus on is ensuring the data is effective. Simply bringing data into the business is not enough; it must be useful for consumers. Building this from the ground up can be a multiyear process. Dobson outlines what it would entail: “It would mean building the entire data model from scratch, building up the domain and technology expertise and harmonising the data to make it consistent. This is what would need to be done to live up to consumer expectations and help them derive value from the data.”
data management foundations
TECHNOLOGY ELEVATES
THREE PATHS TO MANAGING DATA
ARCESIUM 4 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
Firms also need to build trust in the data among their consumers – this involves creating a robust data quality framework that reduces reliance on data operations personnel. It would allow a firm’s resources to unlock value from this data rather than spending time cleansing it and ensuring its accuracy.
Dobson notes how, faced with this data issue, hedge funds have one of three potential paths they can follow: “They can choose to go it alone and build their own data warehouse and models and manage all those connections independently. This decision made sense historically when data was limited to a fixed number of connectivity points. But it’s not a model built for handling rapid change. Scaling this solution is also challenging.
“The other two options involve working with a partner. Hedge funds can decide to build an aggregation of point solutions, but this still means signing up for a longterm initiative before they are able to truly unlock value. Making each of these point solution decisions and building them to work seamlessly together is a tall task that requires deep domain and technical expertise.”Ratherthan piece together a handful of solutions, managers can find a single tool that has already solved most of these problems. This is the third route firms can follow when considering how they
The growing variety of data sources underlines the importance of having a plan to keep up with all the data and ensure it’s used effectively.
Additionally, partners can provide tools that are ready out-of-the-box. This will enable managers to onboard all forms of data – in structured and unstructured formats – more quickly than what has been done historically. A partner can also build the data model in a way that allows models to relate to each other to derive value and have the potential to be adaptive.“Yourpartners need to include some flexibility in that data model to make sure it can handle any unique aspect of the business that isn’t as generally applicable,” Dobson says.
The machine learning and data science dimension is one Dobson expects to progress further: “We’re seeing machine learning deployed in a few different ways. One is around data quality. We’ve made several in-roads in using machine learning to detect anomalies, clean data, and make sure it’s fit for consumption.” But the most significant opportunity for growth lies in making analytics more predictive: “We’re working to make analytics more forward-looking and empower users to leverage these results, even those who aren’t necessarily data scientists. We would like to allow all business users to derive value from theBydata.”investing in a rich data solution, a business can harmonise data across different sources and ensure this contributes to efficiency and effectiveness. Operating from a central data model forces consistency and inspires trust in the data, which can then be used to drive business decisions.
TAKING TECHNOLOGY TO THE NEXT LEVEL
ALEX DOBSON
ARCESIUM 5TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
manage data and derive value from it.
Alex Dobson is a Senior Vice President leading Arcesium’s Product team. Prior to the formation of Arcesium, Alex was a Vice President with the DE Shaw group for 8 years where he led a trade accounting and operations team supporting the macro and liquid alternative trading desks. He graduated with honors from Pennsylvania State University with bachelor’s degrees in finance and economics.
“Increasingly, investment decisions are being driven by predictive analytics. So, if a firm has a harmonised model of securities’ financial performance over the past years, and they know the data is trustworthy, they can be more comfortable that the model is providing the rightRobustanalysis.”data management isn’t limited to the front office. It can benefit users across the investment lifecycle, including roles such as investor relations at a hedge fund. Dobson comments: “If they have easy access to highquality data, users can be confident the data is right and consistent across their accounting providers or administrators. Then they can quickly respond to investor calls looking for a track record or performance. As a result, these requests can be turned around in hours instead of days or weeks.”
SVP, PRODUCT AT ARCESIUM
Further, vendors are positioned to invest in things that wouldn’t make sense for an individual business. This includes functions like machine learning, advanced analytics, and other more exploratory technology. Consumers reap the benefits of those investments. Whereas, in an individual context, it might not have the same return on investment.
“A partner can definitely lend expertise in solving many of the problems managers are apt to face when dealing with data. This allows the client to focus on the more differentiating activity that really drives their bottom line,” Dobson says, highlighting the benefits of a single tool. “A provider can also deliver scale across data sources. So, with traditional market data, a vendor will have a plug-in that can be turned on quickly to avoid a tedious mapping and onboarding exercise.”
Following several waves of evolution, the research market landscape has witnessed the growth of modern RMS solutions which are built to grow in line with the funds they service. Going forward, interoperability and adaptability will define the future of these solutions.
Modern RMS systems integrate usability and the user interface of consumer app technology. They have configurability of the tailored homegrown solutions which were part of the first wave of innovation. Additionally, they are secure and compliant right out of the box and help streamline the process and collaboration aspect of research.
SENTIEO 7TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
As a result, it is now critical for all investment management firms to have a centralised system of records and a compliant, configurable and secure RMS solution that can organise this mountain of information for their team members. This is a positive shift towards being ready for a world where managers need to continue being efficient and operational while also preparing for change. Tyagi comments: “It really indicates that there is a pent-up demand for investment research solutions with the usability and flexibility of modern CRM platforms - solutions that really understand the investment research terminology, the investment research processes, and solutions that work straight out of the box. This is really exciting for our industry and we’re continuing to partner with our clients to build innovative products that the future of RMS
“Most of our clients are looking for a solution of that kind,” notes Swati Tyagi, vice president of product, Sentieo, “in addition to this, there is a large ecosystem of solutions built to support investment decision processes and consume and analyse data. As this population of systems has grown, so have the amount of data and insights produced from these systems, and the need to organise this informationhas become more acute.”
INTEROPERABILITY:
Swati holds a Bachelor in Science degree from CCS University in India. meet their needs .”
SPEED OF CHANGE Technology is the foundation that is enabling this development and is fuelling the shift in today’s world. “It is absolutely the backbone of all of these changes,” Tyagi notes, “The move to modern RMS systems is not only happening because the world cannot operate without technology; it’s also driven by the volume of information and the speed of change that investment management professionals and analysts have to handle day in and day out.”
“Everybody wants to make sure they are dealing with investment decisions in a compliant manner and keeping up to date with changing regulations. They need to ensure there is supporting evidence, proper reporting, and audit structures built into their research management systems.”
“All firms, no matter their size, need to invest in designing and implementing processes that help their teams navigate these volumes of data & insights more reliably and putting systems in place to categorize and organise it for quick access. They also need to make sure they do this in the most compliant way possible. Doing this would be a big differentiator for these firms,” Tyagi says. This growing need among all types of firms also underscores the flexibility modern RMS demands going forward. Any system that can meet the needs of different-sized investment firms and that can be adapted to workflow needs of a variety of teams and their own style of working. Tyagi notes: “If a system is flexible enough to be configured to each team’s or firm’s needs, that system will survive in this market and be adopted broadly.”Thereis a myriad of technology solutions currently available in the market and she stresses the importance of having a system which is open and interoperable with the entire ecosystem of clients’ workspaces: “Any system that is interoperable, configurable,can scale with the clients; and can evolve alongside the ever-changing regulations, is the future of RMS.”
SWATI TYAGI VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT, SENTIEO Swati Tyagi serves as Vice President of Product at Sentieo. She has 16 years of Product Management experience leading conceptualisation, development, and growth of B2B SaaS products for various industries and sectors across the globe. Prior to Sentieo, Swati worked for Diligent Corporation, a leading platform for Governance, Risk, and Compliance where she led the product team for Diligent’s flagship product and helped transform it from a point solution into an integrated platform used by 50% of Fortune 1000 companies. Swati also helped launch social impact apps for fundraising and grantmaking on the Salesforce platform, which were later acquired by Salesforce.
Deploying a modern RMS also supports compliance efforts, which are being thrown into focus by ever-changing regulations.
Tyagi outlines that in order to make sure these investment managers and analysts are able to use this information to their benefit, it is critical for them to have a robust process in place, one which is followed across teams within an organisation.
EFFECTIVE USE OF DATA
Having disconnected processes adds overheads to investment analysts’ dayto-day work. It also takes time away from some of the strategic work they could be doing instead, which could support more robust investment decisions being made. This underscores the need for companies to move towards automating workflows and adhering to organisation’s processes by having a single source of information and pre-defined best practices which will allow them to scale and mature with resilience.
SENTIEO 8 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
The modern RMS is a result of four waves of innovation in the space, says Tyagi. It began with tailored homegrown solutions which were built specifically to meet the needs of the fund they serviced. Although they matched the firm’s needs, they were expensive. These systems needed continuous maintenance in order to adapt and accommodate new data sources or processes, which was a time drain on the fund.Second came the RMS solution wave, where some solutions were built to address the regulatory needs of RMS markets, but this produced many clunky solutions.
The third wave was marked by growing consumer technology solutions and the sharing and collaborative functions these tools introduced. Evernote, OneNote, and Sharepoint all form part of this. Tyagi notes that although this worked to some extent, because these technologies were easier to use and adopt, these solutions still did not integrate the workflow of information and continued to be inefficient This evolution of RMS has led the industry to the current state of affairs –where flexible, user-friendly, compliant solutions can be deployed with ease.
Making effective use of the deluge of information in a timely manner on a daily basis is critical for investment analysts to enhance their investment recommendations and decisions. Making sense of this data can mean the difference between winning and losing trades.
Tyagi comments:
Across the industry, experts have witnessed growing demand around compliance and reporting best practices.
Tyagi says: “These solutions were heavy on compliance and not great with usability or workflow management. They were also not flexible enough to match the needs of different types or sizes of funds.”
However, putting this into action can be a complex task, especially due to the swathes of data and information which need to be managed. “One of the major problems in investment research is data and how that data gets organised, tagged and stored into an ever-growing, large and complex filing structure,” explains Tyagi, “being able to access that data whenever needed, and get the intelligence you need from these data systems is just not possible without efficient technology solutions.”
the idea was that asset managers were either discretionary, making investment decisions in a less systematic way, or they were quants –susceptible to criticism for following a too strict rules-based approach. The truth is somewhere in the middle, where both sides apply some measure of the other in their approach but in different parts of their investment processes,” says Daniel Leveau, VP Investor Solutions at SigTech, “However, the explosion in technology and analytical methods seen in the last couple of years means managers can start to quantify things that were not really quantifiable five or 10 years ago.”
The easy access to powerful technology allows discretionary investment managers to become more technology-driven investors. These funds are showing a growing propensity to systematise parts of their investment process, be it in the widening of their product range to include quant funds or the integration of systematic analytics into their investment processes.InLeveau’s view, this is necessary in order for managers to compete in today’s market and to generate the alpha they need: “Many managers that historically wouldn’t consider themselves to be quantitative in their approach need to start applying more of these systematic analyses to their investment processes to stay competitive.”
The findings in a research report published by SigTech further supports this view. Three out of four respondents (77%) agree hedge funds need to ensure both access to high quality and operationally ready data and cutting-edge technological infrastructure in order to achieve strong absolute returns in the future.
Leveau describes this shift as the “quantification of the industry”. This doesn’t mean the end of discretionary investment management, however the trend towards investment decisions being based on systematic analysis is gathering momentum.Thisneed is felt more acutely in times of turmoil within financial markets. “Hedge funds are in a prime position to show their true value for investors in today’s market; having the ability to deliver absolute returns in any market environment. However, to stay competitive and to profit
Bridging the gap between QUANT DISCRETIONARYAND
As the rate of data proliferation intensifies, hedge fund managers are increasingly leavening their discretionary approaches with quantitative methods in order to better utilise the available“Traditionally,data.
SIGTECH 9TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
SIGTECH 10 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
DANIEL LEVEAU
However, this shift does not come without challenges. A common hurdle managers face is accessing the skill set necessary to implement quantitative techniques within their firm. “It is not just the hedge fund industry being quantified but other industries as well. This means competition for skilled professionals in the field is fierce,” observes Leveau, “Those who have the required knowledge are highly sought after, not just by the financial industry but by other sectors as well. It’s very easy to underestimate how much time and effort goes into building the code infrastructure needed to run these analytical systems and to deploy these strategies successfully.”
Leveau highlights the benefits of applying quantitative techniques to investing: “One of the main advantages of a systematic approach is that it is non-emotional and thus ensures greater consistency. This doesn’t mean it is always a better approach but from experience, people don’t tend to make the wisest decisions when there is havoc in the “Andmarkets.”now,with the ever-expanding computing power available, together with more extensive datasets, managers can also react faster to changes in the market. It’s not that systematic investing is always going to outperform discretionary but there will be these small advantages that will add up in the long-term.”
TOUGH TO COMPETE Managers who do not transition into using more quantitative techniques could be in for a bleak future. Leveau says: “The main risk of inaction is that managers face tougher and tougher competition and subsequently fall further and further behind. Data and new information is being processed faster and faster and through collaboration, the computing mind can elevate what the human mind can do. Managers who fail to innovate can struggle performance wise. Further, as systematic investment strategies are gaining market share from discretionary managers, the potential pie they can take a piece of shrinks from a structural point of view.”
The next challenge in implementing these changes is dealing with the data needed to run quant models. Simply buying the data is not enough; it needs to be cleaned, validated and pre-mapped to be operationally ready. These are tasks managers often find tedious. “This is one of the major pain points. When we talk to investors, an aversion to cleaning and validating data is a common theme,” notes Leveau, “therefore, firms are breaking up their value chains: focusing on their strengths and outsourcing tasks better suited to external professionals.”Therefore,managers gain economies of scale by focusing on their core competency, allowing service providers to become experts at delivering operationally-ready data and to build and deploy quantitative infrastructure in a scalable and flexible manner.
BARRIERS TO QUANTIFICATION
technology-drivenbecomemanagersinvestmentdiscretionarytomoreinvestors
Daniel, VP of Investor Solutions at SigTech, has a 20+ year career in investment management. He has held senior positions including Chairman, CEO, head of portfolio management and senior fund manager at hedge funds, asset managers and banks. At SigTech, Daniel acts as a subject matter expert and frequently publishes articles and papers. Easy access to powerful technology allows
VP INVESTOR SOLUTIONS, SIGTECH
from the general quantification of the industry, hedge funds need to continue investing in new technology and data,” Leveau says.
CONSOLIDATION UP AHEAD So according to Leveau, the discretionary and systematic approaches are going to connect more as time goes by: “There will be more flow between these areas and systematic analysis is going to play some part in all investment processes, even within a traditional discretionary approach.
“I also believe that there’s going to be increased specialisation in the industry, with a move away from hedge funds doing everything internally. Instead, the trend for outsourcing with third party specialist providers ensuring managers gain access to the right technology and data will accelerate.”Onthedata side, Leveau expects to witness consolidation: “There are so many data providers out there, but there is a big gap between getting the data from a provider to hedge funds actually making use of that data. The industry needs to see the expansion of an intermediary space where specialist providers take the data from the vendors, clean it, validate it and make it operationally ready. These groups must have the expertise to fully understand what impact the data can have on the hedge funds’ investment strategies and present the data accordingly.
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In keeping pace with shifting investor and adviser demands, UMB is adapting by continually investing time and talent into its proprietary system, AltPro®, which provides detailed reporting directly from the source.
Calton says: “The age-old problem of standardisation has prevented the private fund space from creating a one-size-fitsall solution for onboarding new investors and processing subscription documents.
New software offerings with a side of fund administration claim to be automatic, using robotic process automation (RPA). However, these offerings still require integration using human touch for both reconciliation and review.”Further, the SEC announced several proposed new rules for private funds that cover a wide range of topics including statements of performance and fees, mandatory fund audits, adviser-led secondaries, compliance program reviews and testing, and revisions to Form PF requirements, to name a few. She identifies how finding the right solution
“The push for delivery of financial statements and other deliverables as quickly as possible has increased significantly,” notes Jill Calton EVP, Executive Director Alternative Investments, UMB Fund Services, underscoring the growing calls for more for transparency alongside these shorter reporting deadlines. This increasing sense of urgency can impact quality if not managed appropriately by administrators.
Calton details how UMB is moving to a daily cadence for data processing as a result: “Our accounting teams are standardising workflow to provide investment data more near time for our quarterly reporting clients. Investor transactions are updated as they occur.” “We aim to update investment reporting as frequently as weekly sometimes daily to allow the general partners more up to date investment reporting. These changes do require more resources, so increased costs passed through to funds should be expected.”
Investor onboarding is another area to consider within the context of private capital funds as the space has witnessed a significant rise in technology solutions.
The firm is also developing processes to get as close to real-time as possible with less preparation at reporting time. The platform also supports UMB in accommodating client requests related to their need for data to be uploaded directly to their internal platforms for tracking investor, investment and general ledger parameters.
PRIVATE CAPITAL NEEDS
In addition, UMB has seen a significant amount of growth in the private debt space, says Calton: “Our clients, current and potential, are looking to us as a solution to track their loan portfolios. We are currently working to scale this business, moving beyond manual processes to specialised loan servicing providers and software.”
MAINTAINING QUALITY while increasing speed UMB FUND SERVICES 12 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
Clients’ reporting demands have also been changing as offering online access to investors to retrieve fund information safely and securely has been widely adopted throughout the industry. Calton observes: “Previously, clients were happy to just receive financial statements and investor statements in PDF format. More and more clients are requesting more detailed exports of their investment and investor data. Reporting has shifted from standard to tailored, including custom exports of clients’ data. UMB’s AltPro platform can readily extract clients’ data, which has proven very beneficial to our clients.”
An increasing sense of urgency for data and reporting among investors is sharpening the focus on quality to ensure excellence is preserved as client demand for speed rises. The way this data is delivered is also changing in view of investor needs.
CYBER VIGILANCE Investors and managers also need to remain mindful of cybersecurity issues and potential fraud as these risks remain significant. Delivering data through a secure portal can help mitigate these concerns. According to Calton: “As digital transformation accelerated during Covid and is now continuing, so does the risk of cyberattack. Risks of data breaches, bad actors, wire fraud, late funding, missing deals, and missing compliance and reporting deadlines require persistent attention.”
“We help mitigate that risk by using our secure portal to deliver and receive confidential information. The UMB portal includes a two-step authentication method to prevent cyberattacks. We’ve also focused on reviewing policies and procedures to address increased threats to ensure that we are protecting our clients and their data.”
Jill leads the alternative investment servicing business of UMB Fund Services, which offers a full range of back-office services for alternative investment funds. Her responsibilities include organisational leadership, strategic development and fiscal management. This includes overseeing the teams that provide fund accounting, administration, investor reporting, tax and audit services for the company’s alternative investment clients. She is a certified public accountant and a member of the Utah Association of CPAs. She also serves on the Hedge Fund Association’s board of directors.
UMB FUND SERVICES 13TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
here can still be challenging and costly. As the industry faces numerous pressures, Calton stresses: “We recommend clients look hard at how fund administrator industry consolidation will impact their services. Watch out for smoke and mirrors and find the value add of a proven accounting system and team. Remember, data is king. Clients need a reliable partner to update, review, and maintain the data for decision making.” Such partners can help managers and their investors navigate other changes in the industry. This includes new IRS reporting requirements. “The partnership tax form K-3, which is meant to standardise international tax reporting, has brought with it a 15+ page tax form that is meant to be included in nearly every K-1 sent to investors. This has been quite the task for the industry to implement and streamline, and many are still working on it,” Calton outlines.
JILL CALTON, CPA EVP, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR ALTERNATIVE INVESTMENTS, UMB FUND SERVICES
info@aceits.net | (646) 558A C E I T S N E T / O M E G A Our experts can help you navigate a strategic path that addresses cybersecurity & compliance at the same time. Let's Connect
“These assets can differ in scope: multiple contracts with different day count conventions, unscheduled paydowns, and, generally speaking, a lot more nuance around how rates are reset and interest is calculated. From a Geneva perspective, we have had to consider these aspects as we continue to build on certain features
“We see managers going deeper and deeper into the asset class,” comments Nicholas Nolan, Vice President of Solutions Management and Product Development at SS&C Advent. “Historically, we would see managers with a split of 90% syndicated and 10% private, but now that ratio is around 30-40% private.”
The shift means managers require greater flexibility in their accounting system because private loans are more bespoke in nature. Nolan says SS&C has responded with additional development of the SS&C Geneva® suite of products and services.
AMBITIOUS CREDIT MOREHUNGRYMANAGERSFORSUPPORT SS&C ADVENT 15TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
The credit arena is expanding, buoyed by investor appetite for private credit and similar asset types. As managers look to enter new markets and offer investors new, potentially more complex asset classes, their need for greater operational flexibility and broader accounting support is growing.
COMPLEX ASSET CLASS
NICHOLAS NOLAN VICE PRESIDENT OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AT SS&C
Nicholas Nolan is the Vice President of Product Management and Product Development at SS&C Advent. He currently oversees all aspects of the development process and product management for SS&C Geneva. In addition, he works closely with hedge funds, assets managers, and fund administrators as they evaluate new operating models for middle and back office technology and services. Areas of expertise include complex derivatives, bank loans, credit and debt processing, reconciliation, and asset servicing. Prior to that, he worked at Fidelity Investments in collateral risk management. He is a graduate of Columbia University and currently lives in NYC with his wife and two children. Managers require greater flexibility in their accounting system because private loans are more bespoke in nature “
Due to the nuanced nature of credit as an asset class, Nolan has also observed a growing desire for managed services on behalf of clients: “There is an opportunity for managed services in this part of the market. Equity markets can be easier to manage operationally and tend to be straightthrough.”Creditcomes with a lot more complexity due to the delayed settlement cycle, agent notices and overall irregular cash flows and events, which require swathes of reconciliations to be carried out. Given this, more managers want to take advantage and partner with providers offering technology and services to support their back office.
within our systems – such as support for loans, structured products, fixed income, and derivatives.”“Tobestserve our customers, we need greater flexibility and support for calculating accruals and user-based workflows for event processing and cash flow generation. This is where we have been investing and where our team is focused,” he notes. The firm’s developments have resonated with equity managers moving into credit and credit managers moving into private capital investments. Nolan explains: “Giving managers the ability to have one system for life and not have to change how they operate our product is significant to us.”
“
SS&C Advent has been working on expanding the breadth and depth of its services to meet clients’ needs.
SS&C ADVENT 16 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
Delegating such tasks to a third party can also reduce risk. As the Great Resignation saw people leave their jobs and take years of institutional knowledge, many firms realized third-party products and services might have longer staying power.
SHARPER FOCUS This additional support allows the managers to focus on what they are good at. Nolan says: “We spend a lot of time with clients upfront to understand their goals and desires are; what types of output they need or the types of demands their investors have of “Ourthem.”clients are in the business of generating alpha by making prudent investment decisions to produce the highest returns for their clients. It’s not in their interest to be the best at reading agent notices, processing pay downs, or reconciliationthat’s why we’re here. We are the experts in our solutions and strive to support our clients by being the best at these operational tasks.”
“In some cases, within firms, you may have a couple of people who know how everything works. This can cause problems when those people move on,” Nolan comments. “We have thousands of people who understand how our products work, and therefore having our firm as part of your ecosystem reduces risk from an operations perspective.”
SS&C Advent has been developing additional tools to facilitate the growth of its managed services business, alongside continued investment in its accounting software.Nolanalso notes this development has led to SS&C shifting its recruitment practices: “Previously, we were in the market for software engineers and great product people, particularly asset class experts in derivatives and bank debt. Now we need operations and accounting experts for the daily processing of bank loans, structured products, and derivatives – especially people who have worked for hedge funds, asset managers, or administrators. These professionals can help run these parts of our business.”
“Our Managed Services business started to take off in the credit space as clients wanted assistance around daily processing and data governance. They wanted us to assist with tasks like trade processing, loading valuations, P&L report generation, daily reconciliation, settlements, and monthend“Before,processing.”wewere very focused on selling software, which the client implemented, and we assisted. This has changed drastically in the last few years, particularly accelerated by COVID. Geneva also forms the backbone of accounting and portfolio management within our fund administration offering, SS&C GlobeOp. This makes SS&C wellpositioned for firms to leverage Geneva, either in a fully-hosted and fully-outsourced environment through SS&C GlobeOp, or now in a co-sourced arrangement through our Managed Services offering. We are able to utilize the tools that SS&C GlobeOp has built around Geneva—mainly in notice processing, acquisition of data from counterparties, and reconciliation as part of our Managed Services offering for clients.”
“You can carry out weekly, monthly or quarterly phish testing. The system will generate messages pertaining to the business vertical and send emails to a firm’s users. These can all be tracked and
CONTINUOUS TRAINING AND ASSESSMENT KEY TO ROBUST CYBERSECURITY OMEGA SYSTEMS 18 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
Security solutions can help firms mitigate these risks, but Mutzel identifies the critical role end-users play in making sure these solutions actually serve their purpose. “You can put the best lock on your front door and have a state-of-the-art surveillance system, but if you leave your keys in the door or the door open, then they will not stop intruders.
“Information is now being copied out, forwarded or impersonated. This means not only do firms need to comply with issues around breach notifications, they also need to manage the reputational harm which can come to them,” Mutzel says.
The approach to cybersecurity is shifting as the risk of data leaks has become more commonplace.
New proposed regulations by the Securities and Exchange Commission mean firms need to disclose any incident within a specific deadline. Regulators would also want clients to be notified, which means the firm may well lose some of its clientele.
This brings with it significant regulatory and reputational concerns as a potential breach could be extremely damaging.
SECURING END USERS
Hedge funds and financial firms also need to ensure they implement consistent and continuous training, monitoring and testing to contend with ever-changing, creative threat actors. This is also critical in view of changing regulatoryFinancialrequirements.institutions,including hedge funds, have evolved and threat actors are raising the stakes turning ransomware attacks into something even more menacing. By and large, firms now have access to strong backups and disaster recovery software so traditional ransomware attacks are largely ineffectual as they are no longer compelled to pay the ransom to gain access to their files.
“Threat actors are now getting access to environments in various ways. They lay low, carry out a lot of reconnaissance work in the hopes of exfiltrating the data,” explains Rick Mutzel, security & compliance officer at Omega Systems, “This means instead of simply holding access to files for ransom, these criminals are already holding a firm’s data – which is a much bigger problem.”
“We can put all these technical controls in place to monitor and secure data and information, but the end user is always going to be a firm’s weakest link. Therefore, end user awareness and user training is the largest risk a business faces.” Email is a low point of vulnerability for most firms and therefore implementing robust end user training to encourage security awareness and education will help mitigate these kinds of risks. Omega Systems provides such training and Mutzel underscores the importance of continuous assessments and training.
UNDERSTANDING THE RISK From its perspective, Omega has created solutions to support firms, particularly those looking to for support from a thirdparty partner. This was done in answer to a number of additional compliance and regulatory requirements which are being introduced. Some of these can be hard to meet, especially for smaller companies.
Effectively, regulators want to see cybersecurity policies which are dynamic – ones which are implemented across a business and are also continuously monitored and updated. This also applies to the technology being used for cybersecurity purposes – it needs to be reviewed and adapted according to a firm’s changing requirementsInaddition to the growing need for continuous assessment, the shift of responsibility within the cybersecurity landscape is also having an impact on the industry.Whatmay have started as a siloed area of expertise is now essential to a firm’s future. Mutzel outlines the importance of having a reliable cybersecurity function. How this is tackled depends on the size of the company: “Small institutions may not necessarily have the ability to have a dedicated chief information officer or an internal IT department. So, they may choose to outsource this to a firm like Omega.” Delegating this means they can get a high-quality end result without having to do much of the heavy lifting.
Mutzel explains: “Part of the regulatory nuance is about understand where the risk is and managing it. An essential part of what we offer is continually monitoring where the data is and what it is, how it’s being accessed etc. Identifying risk does not always mean it needs to be mitigated but firms must know that risk exists in order to make an educated decision on what action to take as a result.”
RICK MUTZEL
Omega’s Smart Comply service offers a different kind of toolset, where they help clients manage risk by doing data discovery.
This reporting function is crucial given the increasing scrutiny by regulators. Mutzel outlines: “Traditionally, a yearly assessment or audit was sufficient. Now the methodology has transitioned to this continuous model, where they want to see these assessments happen on a reoccurring basis. Firms will still get an official audit on a yearly basis but the regulator wants to see that internally, firms are continually doing vulnerability scans or reviewing policies and procedures and making adaptations to those based on an incident that may have happened.”
Larger institutions are more likely to consider bringing the role in-house and that is where, Mutzel stresses the importance of having an expert in an advisory role: “My recommendation is to have that person report directly to someone very senior within the company. This avoids them getting stuck in a lot of red tape and means they can be more adaptive and nimble. The IT director or CIO needs to be in a position where they can get the audience with somebody who can make the actionable items come true. Having that person report directly to the C-suite or the board of directors avoids things falling through the cracks.”
This is a growing element in Omega’s offer, alongside Smart Secure, which focuses more on the technical elements of cybersecurity provision.
SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE OFFICER, OMEGA SYSTEMS
Rick Mutzel is a trusted technical advisor and virtual Chief Information Officer to Omega Systems’ customers, who appreciate his expertise in cybersecurity and third-party compliance audit requirements, including SEC, CMMC, HIPAA, CJIS, GLBA and PCI
REGULATION RESPONSIBILITYAND
OMEGA SYSTEMS 19TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
monitored. Users can report a suspect email to our SOC [security operations centre] team. Those who do click on the email are automatically enrolled in remediation can also be used to run reports to be presented to the firm’s board or IT steering committee. This will allow firms to understand what their threat level is and strengthen any areas which may need attention at a given point in time.
training.”Thedata
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In times of market uncertainty, risk functions at prime brokers (PBs) manage their client risk exposures more dynamically. Their role is to ensure enough margin is charged and collateral is held in a variety of “risk-off” scenarios across the spectrum of hedge fund trading strategies.
Prolonged and heightened market volatility has renewed the focus on margin costs across the hedge fund industry. At times when market factors lead to sudden deleveraging and reallocation of risk; Treasury and COO functions need to ensure margin jumps don’t generate additional drags on P&L.
PB margin frameworks utilise parametrised rules and market stress shocks meant to provide stable margin for clients whilst also covering their lending risk in adverse scenarios. These models, at times, may be outdated for the adverse market conditions they were developed for, or may not account for extreme tail risk. As such, in times of turmoil, PBs will alter the parameters for client margin agreements or house stress policies to cover any potential gaps in margin charged.
A recent market study by Acuiti, on Margin Management for Hedge Funds, found some impactful themes supporting this:• 50% of hedge funds surveyed had been forced to take negative steps, reducing fund performance when meeting margin calls in volatile markets. In parallel,38% had to
The practice of benchmarking the frameworks used to margin a PB’s clients to the PB’s own internal stress models is commonplace across all major banks. This means that dynamically changing margin parameters to ensure the margin charged stays within the stressed risk or backtesting metrics become more frequent in choppy markets. These margin methodologies are often opaque to the end client when initially implemented as they are defined in complex model documentation. This, coupled with parameter and threshold changes that become more frequent during volatile markets, makes it challenging for hedge funds to have full transparency over their margin calculations on a daily basis. HOW ARE HEDGE FUNDS LOOKING AT THIS?
THE IMPACT OF VOLATILE MARKETS ON PB MARGINING UNDERSTANDING MARGIN MODEL CHANGES AND THE IMPACTS ON YOUR PORTFOLIO CASSINI SYSTEMS 21TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
2. ASSESS HOW ALTERING PARAMETERS CAN IMPACT THE PORTFOLIO WHILE COGNISANT OF PARAMETER CHANGES’ TRICKLE-DOWN EFFECT A PB may change policy thresholds in light of market volatility. This doesn’t lead to a significant change in day1 margin, though over time it can creep to have a much higher margin percentage charged.
• Attributing margin costs against different strategies and to different portfolios for optimal operational performance. Examining exposure and margin at intermediate margin rules assesses which strategies are margin-reducing.
1.EVALUATING THE IMPACT OF A RULES-BASED VS STRESS-BASED MARGIN POLICY Stress-based margin policies have comprehensive market scenario shocks. For bespoke strategies such as an equity fund with mergers or pairs arbitrage this type of policy won’t be the most efficient.
4. OVERLAYING IMPACT OF MARGIN WHEN NEGOTIATING THE ALLOCATION OF BALANCES ACROSS PBS BASED ON WALLET SHARE PBs offer lower financing rates when they can negotiate a higher share of balances from hedge funds. Though, a mismatch in exposure where hedge funds have directional portfolios at PBs can lead to overall higher margin rates and subsequently lower leverage. As much as lower financing rates will have a direct impact to the bottom line; the ability to have higher leverage will allow trading strategies to achieve higher efficiency. At times when without a certain amount of leverage, the strategy may be ineffective, it is imperative to overlay margin rates in wallet share negotiations.
close out high-margin strategies.
• In the aftermath of Archegos, 46% of funds saw their PBs change margin policies and 54% have stricter enforcement of margin calls.
• Having transparency for day-today reconciliation. Validating large moves in the margin or changes to parameters.
ADDRESSING MARGIN STRATEGIES
CONCLUSION As we have seen, there are several reasons why PBs alter and adapt their margin rules. It is imperative for them to keep their models current with market conditions to manage their counterparty risk. Events like the fall of Archegos are a prime justification for PBs to ensure their margin policies are not outdated. This shed light on the equities and synthetic PB business lines and was a driver in a reevaluation of the client risk PBs are taking.
PB internal stress testing policies are more robust and are reflected in client policies.
Given the current volatility in the market, changes in margin models are going to be more common, rather than the alternative.
After Archegos, there has been a big push to review PB policies more frequently and update risk parameters to reflect current market risks. This is a prompt to hedge funds to be more proactive in their assessment of PB margin requirements rather than reactive to changes driven by the primes.
VARDAAN KOHLI SENIOR PRODUCT SPECIALIST, CASSINI
From the view of their margin relationships with PBs; Hedge fund personnel are most focused on the following -
• How they can validate complex margin policies, assess the impact of new trades prior to receiving T+1 margin calls and ensure transparency on daily margin vs term lending limits.
• The front office wants to reduce performance drag from margin inefficiencies and have a pre-trade view of the impact of give-ups, closeouts, executions, or clearing activity across Prime clearing counterparties.
• In contrast, aspects such as pricing were found to be much stickier in volatile markets, with only 27% of funds reporting fee increases.
3. TESTING THE IMPACT OF INCREASED MANDATES OR HYPOTHETICAL PORTFOLIOS ACROSS PB RELATIONSHIPS Where funds anticipate a new trading mandate or higher allocation to a PM in a multi-manager strategy, they should run what-if scenarios across their PB relationships to estimate if the increase in margin is linear or it has an asymmetric impact to margin increase.
There have been outsized losses and some contrarian winners as a result. Volatility levels across the asset classes remain elevated. This has enhanced the need for banks to have comprehensive stress-based policies that cover all asset classes and market scenarios.
Similarly, the events we are seeing this year, such as the war in Ukraine and Post-Covid-driven market demand/supply imbalances, are causing prolonged high inflation rates which in turn, are leading to strong macro-economic policy responses. This has brought market shocks to all areas of investing such as interest rates, inflation, and corporate debt-driven strategies.
Hedge funds should have the tools and resources at hand that allow them to transparently view complex PB policies. They need to use these tools to discuss their margin requirements openly with their PBs so they don’t block an unnecessarily higher amount of liquidity and collateral, which would ordinarily be deployed towards revenue-generating avenues.
Vardaan has a decade of experience in the financial services industry, having started his career at a tier-1 investment bank. He held a variety of roles across multiple departments including operations, counterparty risk, and Regulatory projects. Vardaan is now an SME across margin types and specialises in Prime Brokerage and brings his vast knowledge and experience to Cassini as Senior Product Manager, where his main role is to work on product initiatives in partnership with our clients to enhance the overall user experience.
CASSINI SYSTEMS 22 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
There are four ways in which hedge funds can address margin strategies :
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ANDCOLLABORATIONFOSTERINGCONNECTION METAFRAME TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS 24 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
“The solution we offer pulls information from one source, transforms it enriches it using other sources, and then sends it off to either a system or designated email address,” Lee says, “For hedge fund managers this supports operations by sending in day trader reports, pricing position reports, reconciliations, beginning of day risk reports, etc.” Through DashHub, hedge fund managers have been able to automate and deliver the code-critical metrics they want to see on a daily basis. “This has been a big gain for them,” Lee observes.
ENCOURAGING COLLABORATION
In the fallout of the Covid pandemic, the need for solutions that support connection has become more acute. “Covid fundamentally changed the way people work. Especially in the hedge fund industry, where you now have entire teams that are virtual - from the traders to the analysts, the administrative staff people,” Lee comments, “But historically, the structure that works best is when you’re all in the same room. This is why most hedge fund offices are set up with a bullpen where it’s all open and encourages collaboration.”
FRONT OFFICE SHIFT For a technology solution to be considered for the use of the front office, Lee highlights there needs to be a switch in thought processes as well: “What is critical is that the hedge funds view us as a partner in their firm’s endeavors. Having been part of a hedge fund, our technology team is able to integrate seamlessly.
John-Peter Lee is an accomplished FinTech Executive with over 20 years of experience leading the technology vision necessary to position businesses to greater levels of growth and efficiency. With expertise in agile software development, FinTech systems, and process automation, John-Peter works with high-growth companies in the hedge fund industry.
METAFRAME TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS 25TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
JOHN-PETER LEE PRINCIPAL, METAFRAME TECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS
Compliance requirements for hedge funds have been on a steady upward trajectory since the global financial crisis. In some cases, this has led to the breakdown of a tangible connection with portfolio managers, as the business is often too concerned with ensuring nothing is missed. Technology can help bridge this gap.“The industry has moved towards consolidation of applications. But although these ‘mega applications’ have made many things possible, they also made tailored firm-wide compliance almost impossible,” describes John-Peter Lee, owner, of Metaframe Technology Solutions, “They were forced into it by the rising compliance needs and as a result, that flexibility is gone.”Hesays the loss of visibility and a tangible connection to the portfolio managers is one of the main risks hedge fund managers are facing in this space. The compliance burden is such that firms are worried they will miss something which leads to engaging with portfolio managers being less of a priority. DashHub, Metaframe’s main proposition, seeks to mitigate these issues and enhance operations and reporting for compliance while also improving visibility for trading and opportunities when prospecting.
However, when all staff is working remotely, those relationships can start to break down; therefore, it is critical for firms to view and share information collaboratively. Lee says: “In the past year our clients have got a lot better and a lot smarter at doing this. We have seen them thrive in going through virtual due diligence exercises with potential investors.
“They have realised the importance of having this compliance reporting in place especially as some clients got rejected in the first round of potential investments for not having this sort of infrastructure in place.”Leealso underscores the shift caused by the pandemic in the way Metaframe builds client relationships: “Before the pandemic, a lot of what we did was operational. And although that continues to be DashHub’s main purposes, we’ve seen clients make a leap of thought to thinking it can also be used for front office trading and compliance visibility.”Forexample, the past year has seen progress in integration with Excel. This means the tool can not only generate Excel documents but can also integrate with existing Excel reports. “It is something we have been making our clients aware of; we can automate a lot of what they do and assist not just in an operational capacity but also on the front office side of things,” Lee says.
“The transition we are trying to make is to have clients think of us as part of their team. For example, if they notice their analysts are spending a lot of time pulling data and taking long to get ready for the trading day, they approach us to figure out how to automate that function.” Automation also removes the element of human error where the process is done correctly every time. Lee comments: “We came across cases where they’ve been doing certain things manually for years and they made mistakes which they don’t necessarily catch. When DashHub runs a process, it is accurate every time and can be relied upon. Plus, it is done before the analysts even get to the office.
QUICK CHANGE Metaframe also prides itself on its agility. It’s difficult for mega applications to adapt their scenarios. Managers can put in change requests, which then are sent to the development team which can take six to eight weeks to develop if the request fits in with the application’s business model.
“We can turn requests around in less than a week, most of the time,” stresses Lee, “Some changes can also be done within a day. We have a rich graphing library that allows clients to visualise these dashboards and overviews quickly. We have a rich reporting functionality that allows us to implement basic functionality like end-of-day trade reporting, but also has scope for more complex functionality like Excel-based real-time risk reports, which will be generated at the beginning of day and can then be used throughout the day for training purposes.”
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COST SAVING THROUGH EFFECTIVE TREASURY MANAGEMENT KAYENTA 27TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
“It’s an industry-wide problem from a data perspective because prime brokers and banks are using legacy technology with numerous, disparate systems. The way data is displayed and sent differs between banks, making it impossible for managers to really understand their costs without a technology solution,” he says. Treasury Management Systems (TMS) aggregate, normalise, and present this information to provide the necessary transparency, and Kayenta’s offering is proving to be a powerful solution for their hedge fund clients.
“It’s about understanding the magnitude of the costs and money at stake,” stresses Chris Hagstrom, CEO at Kayenta, “Hedge funds are paying banks billions of dollars a year in financing payments, and its likely to be the biggest share of their wallet in terms of fees paid, trumping execution fees.” But despite this, there is a considerable lack of understanding among hedge fund managers about how controlling these costs can impact their business. Hagstrom outlines the main concerns.
The treasury function within a hedge fund can provide meaningful additional value and cost savings, if it is managed in an effective and efficient manner. However, many managers are not yet prioritising it, to the potential detriment of their investments and their clients. With regulation striving for greater transparency requirements the need to focus on this function is anticipated only to increase.
Chris was also a member of UBS’s Americas Equities Management Committee and chaired the Americas Equities People Forum. Prior to UBS Chris set up the New York financing desk for Société Générale and ran their global equity finance sales team.
The way data is displayed and sent differs between banks, making it impossible for managers to really understand their costs without a technology solution
DATA RELIABILITY
To address this, Kayenta asks their clients to provide a ‘golden source’ of position data that it can integrate into. The firm then recalculates the financing costs on those positions through its independent accrual technology and suggests actions that can be implemented with confidence. Kayenta is expounding a combination of education and focus on the treasury function, to the benefit of managers and their counterparts.
“We want our clients to be more aware of exactly what they could be saving, how they could be a better partner for their prime brokers, and what problems exist within this part of their business which they maybe hadn’t thought were issues at all,” Hagstrom notes. One key consideration is the amount hedge funds pay their counterparties, and what returns those counterparties generate from the business. “In this environment you can’t reduce what you pay and expect the same service levels – the banks need to make profits as well. But give the banks your balances that they can best monetise, and you solve it for both.”
GROWTH PERSPECTIVE
“ “ KAYENTA 28 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
At present, it’s estimated only around 500 of the 7,000+ hedge fund investment managers are using a treasury management system to optimise their portfolio financing. Hagstrom sees it as a resourcing issue both in headcount, time and technology: “Getting budget for treasury management to the top of the technology priority list is difficult, but we believe our service will pay for itself through the cost saving it provides clients; it’s a guarantee I’ve made to clients before they come on Kayentaboard.”aims to provide a service which is affordable to all, as Hagstrom believes that treasury management systems will soon become a necessary part of every hedge fund tech stack: “We want to do more than just help a few clients. We want this to become a market standard.”
What differentiates Kayenta’s TMS is the dependability of the data it presents, according to Hagstrom, “The daily PB reports funds receive are unreconciled and may have missing trade activity. So moving positions on this information alone can cause more problems than it solves. We know from our networks that hedge funds want to optimise their portfolios, but they will only act if they know it’s the right thing to do”.
Seamless and speedy onboarding is critical to embedding the concept: “Once managers recognise they need this service, we need to make it easy for them and get them up and running quickly. They do not have the time to make it work, so it is on us to make it a seamless process,” Hagstrom underscores.Andalthough market disruption can be considered with certain levels of apprehension, it often raises awareness around the need for a service like Kayenta’s: “When the financial crisis broke out in 2008, everyone was suddenly concerned with the credit worthiness of their counterparties and wanted access to their treasury information. Then they forgot about it until something like the Archegos collapse raises a different set of questions and problems involving treasury,” Hagstrom says.
Chris has over 30 years’ experience in hedge fund financing. Prior to joining Kayenta in May 2020, Chris spent 15 years at UBS where he was America’s Head of Global Financing Services with responsibility for the Prime Brokerage, Equity Finance, and Futures businesses.
CHRIS HAGSTROM CEO AT KAYENTA
One of Kayenta’s optional modules is a Financing Wallet calculation, which offers granular insights into where prime brokers are likely to monetise a portfolio. Understanding these preferences means managers can allocate balances to benefit their providers as well as their own costs, and consequently the return metrics of the relationship. “If the cost to the manager is roughly the same, why wouldn’t you react to your prime broker’s preferences?”, asks Hagstrom.
As hedge funds continue to grow, so will the importance of their treasury function. How investment managers control the complexities of portfolio financing will be a differentiating factor for investors as an efficient treasury function provides control and stability, as well as directly impacting net returns.InHagstrom’s view, the scope for growth is significant. “Simplifying the whole treasury process is meaningful given the numbers are getting so big, and it affects funds of all sizes and strategies. But it’s not easy. Technology is clearly the solution given the volume of data and complexity of methodologies, and I feel like we are providing the market with the solution at a very opportune time,” he concludes.
IMPLEMENTATIONSTRAIGHTFORWARD
© 2022 Arcesium LLC Don’t Let Legacy Systems Hold YouDiscoverBack.a New and Better Way. Arcesium’s scalable, cloud-native solutions are unparalleled in the investments industry. We help financial services firms accelerate their data strategy, modernize their operating model, systematize their more complex activities, and unlock opportunities for growth. Take command with Arcesium technology.Scanthiscodeto learn more about Arcesium.
DIRECTORY 30 TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
ACE IT Solutions, an Omega Systems company, is a globally recognized provider of technology and IT services to a wide variety of industries including financial services and alternative invest ments. Our core service offerings include public & private cloud hosting, managed cybersecurity, managed compliance, co-sourcing & IT consulting and backup and disaster recovery. In March 2022, ACE IT Solutions merged with Omega Systems, a leading managed service provider (MSP) and managed security service provider (MSSP) to mid-market organizations in the financial services, government, manufacturing, healthcare, and professional services industries. Together, their customer-first solutions are designed to address the growing regulatory, compliance and data processing needs of today’s highly regulated and security-conscious businesses. Omega & ACE IT have offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey & New York City.
www.metaframetech.com
Kayenta is a market leading provider of Treasury Management System technology (TMS) for hedge fund portfolios. Financing costs are expensive and complex. Based in New York and London, Kayenta’s team of industry veterans are leveraging their experience in prime brokerage, securities lending and hedge fund treasury to bring transparency and efficiency to the finance market. The Cloud based solution harnesses today’s technology to provide flexible and intuitive delivery of a complex data lake through a modular and affordable offering. From a normalised visualisation of cost and trend analysis through to detailed breakdowns of financing wallet and billing accuracy, Kayenta provides the necessary tools for an effective treasury function in hedge funds of all sizes. Reducing clients’ costs and operational burden while improving profitability for their financing counterparts, Kayenta’s unique offering is the new era in Treasury Management Systems.
www.kayenta.io
Today, Arcesium services over $675 billion in global client AUM with a staff of over 1,700 software engineering, accounting, operations, and treasury professionals.
Arcesium is a global financial technology and professional services firm, delivering post-investment and enterprise data management solutions to some of the world’s most sophisticated financial institutions, including hedge funds, banks, institutional asset managers, and private equity firms.
www.arcesium.com
Founded in 2014, Cassini Systems offers an award-winning derivatives margin analytical platform that provides the industry’s only front-to-back margin and cost analysis across the entire lifecycle of a trade. Cassini users can calculate any margin on any cleared or uncleared derivatives asset; analyze drivers and movement in margin exposure; reduce Initial Margin levels; and maximize mar gin efficiency with the firm’s industry-leading, advanced algorithms. Cassini services have a proven track record of enhancing portfolio returns at every point in the daily business cycle, empowering traders and portfolio managers with the ability to analyze instantly in the pre-trade stage the all-in, lifetime cost of a transaction. Top-tier hedge funds, asset managers, and Tier 1 banks rely on Cassini for powerful, flexible, automated tools to manage their portfolios of over-the-counter and exchange-traded derivatives products. Cassini was named Best UMR Service of the Year in the Risk Markets Technology Awards 202
Expertly designed to achieve a single source of truth throughout a client’s ecosystem, Arcesium’s cloud-native technology is built to systematize the most complex workflows and help clients achieve scale. Building on a platform developed and tested by investment and technology de velopment firm, the D. E. Shaw group, Arcesium was launched as a joint venture with Blackstone Alternative Asset Management. J.P. Morgan, another large client, later joined as our third partner.
www.cassinisystems.com
Metaframe Technology Solutions provides automation and reporting software for the financial industry. Metaframe’s goal is to provide instant and accurate data management to the financial community. Our company specializes in connecting systems from major brokerage firms, finan cial service providers, hedge funds, and banking institutions to provide insights through bespoke reports and increase efficiency by using automation. Metaframe’s flagship product, DashHub, is an automated reporting platform that provides custom enhancements to improve accuracy and speed up the process of managing trades and positions. DashHub streamlines a hedge fund’s operational reporting through automatic data capturing, data synthesis, and report delivery. The flow of data between systems and counterparties is automated with pre-defined protocols and parameters, maximizing processing speed while minimizing errors.
www.aceits.net/omega
Sentieo provides the first financial intelligence platform specifically designed for the research needs of investors. Sentieo’s AI-powered financial search engine aggregates internal and external content into a single shared workspace for a more efficient research process. Over 1,000 global customers, including 800 institutional investment firms and Fortune 500 companies, use Sentieo to surface, visualize, and share the insights that give them an edge.
www.sentieo.com
UMB Fund Services provides a customizable, proprietary technology platform for accounting, recordkeeping and reporting for private equity, hedge funds, funds of funds, opportunity zone funds, private debt, real estate and venture capital. Our full-service lineup includes fund admin istration and accounting, investor servicing, tax preparation and reporting, and custody. UMB’s flexible solutions, high-touch service and product expertise are backed by the stability of a highly capitalized parent that has been around for 100+ years.
SigTech offers quant technologies for global investors. Cloud-hosted and Python-based, SigTech accelerates the data-driven investment process, and enables firms and funds to more efficiently scale. The platform integrates an industry leading backtesting engine with clean, validated data across asset classes. SigTech eliminates the expensive upfront costs of infrastructure build-out, giving clients an edge in alpha generation from day one. The SigTech platform was originally built to manage systematic investments at Brevan Howard, which remains a SigTech client today. After the spinoff into an independent company in early 2019, the team has grown substantially and established SigTech as the leading provider of quant technologies
SS&C Advent helps more than 4,300 investment firms around the world—from established global institutions to small start-up practices—to grow their business, minimize risk, and thrive. SS&C Geneva® is the leading portfolio management and investor accounting solution for the alterna tive investment industry. It’s a highly scalable, true multicurrency and multi-asset class platform. Designed to support complex investment strategies across international markets, with the ability to manage fund, entity and legal structures, as well as fully support all transaction types and instruments, including syndicated loans and private debt. Today, Geneva is available in the cloud through SS&C Advent Managed Services, along with a customizable menu of operational servic es for clients to leverage.
DIRECTORY 31TECHNOLOGY REPORT 2022
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HEDGE WEEK