BOSTON -- Some European-based money managers are buying investment software, anticipating manager consolidation in Europe, said Robert Leaper, a director for Thomson Investment Software.
Expansion of European and American money managers into Japan also is driving software sales, said Mr. Leaper, director of business development for Thomson's PORTIA portfolio management software and OpenTrader securities trading software.
"Borders are breaking down," he said, making it easier for money managers to expand into European countries.
Money managers planning mergers or acquisitions, he said, want to have current software to standardize branch offices in each country.
The anticipated consolidation of managers, he said, is similar to the expected consolidation of other businesses in European countries.
Financial deregulation in Japan also is driving investment software sales, he said. European and American money managers are planning, or already setting up, offices in Tokyo.
In some instances, he said, they are buying software to standardize globally, which allows money managers with offices around the world to reduce software maintenance costs by cutting back on computing staff.
One firm, Deutsche Asset Management, Frankfurt, Germany, has selected Thomson's PORTIA software, which Deutsche Asset will use to centralize its operations by linking German offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Munich, Dusseldorf and Hanover to the main data hub in Frankfurt, said Thomson and Deutsche officials.
Deutsche Bank Group is PORTIA's largest global client, with more than 350 users in six offices outside of Frankfurt.
Graham Mellor, managing director of Oppenheimer Capital Inc., New York, said his firm recently selected PORTIA partly because it wanted software with "impeccable" data conversion and client support capabilities. Oppenheimer primarily manages discretionary, value-oriented equity assets for institutions and other clients.
The $71.7 billion New York State Teachers' Retirement System, Albany, and the $1.2 billion AFJP Previnter, Buenos Aires, Brazil, announced in January the licensing of PORTIA, replacing older portfolio accounting systems.
Candice Ronesi, a spokeswoman for the New York teachers fund, said fund officials chose PORTIA partly because of the level of training, documentation and customer support it provides.
Guillermo Donadini, AFJP Previnter chief investment officer, said PORTIA has an entrenched client base in Latin America and offers local support for the software. PORTIA has regional offices in Buenos Aires, Mexico City and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
Separately, Thomson announced it has licensed PORTIA and Thomson OpenTrader to Svenska Handelsbanken, Stockholm.
Initial implementation at the Swedish bank will include support for more than 100 PORTIA and Thomson OpenTrader users. Svenska Handelsbanken will use the new software to replace custom in-house software.
Instinet may bring fixed income into electronic brokerage arena
NEW YORK -- Instinet Corp., an agency broker for equities, is exploring expansion into electronic brokerage for fixed income.
The company is designing a product for global fixed-income markets in an attempt to bring increased efficiency to U.S. and European dealers, according to a company statement.
Instinet plans to mesh the best attributes of electronic trading and value-added broker services on a global scale, according to Peter Fenichel, managing director and head of Instinet's fixed-income group.
The company offers trading and research services in more than 40 financial markets and, through affiliates, is a member of 17 securities exchanges in North American, Europe and Asia.
Algorithmics Inc. offers risk-management suite
TORONTO -- Algorithmics Inc. is offering an integrated suite of risk management software products that the company says is the first designed to reduce implementation costs.
Algo Suite 3.1 features analytics for credit and market risk and includes mapping and data transformation, data delivery, warehousing and process management. It also offers detailed risk reports.
The software includes RiskWatch, analytics for credit and market risk management. The upgraded software is faster and provides analysis for marginal deal, and credit-specific risk and marginal value-at-risk measurement.
Algo Suite 3.1 includes a C++ framework for extending RiskWatch; and Risk Script 3.1, a visual type scripting language that supports batch scripting.
Another module in the suite, HistoRisk, which generates scenarios for a set of simulation alternatives, will now generate value-at-risk and other simulation data for multistep Monte Carlo analyses and historical simulation. It will also do variance and covariance analyses.
For more information, call Pamela Ritchie at Algorithmics, at (416) 217-1500.
Princeton releases accounting, real estate software
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Princeton Financial Systems has released property asset management and accounting software for managing real estate holdings and released trader order management and modeling software.
Princeton's new real estate software tracks income, expenses and market values to provide valuations of real estate holdings, according to a Princeton statement.
The software has AIMR-compliant performance measurement and reporting and permits users to manage complex investment strategies.
Another offering is Princeton's Trader Order Management system. TOM is designed to track the life cycle of a trade from inception of an order through placement, to allocation and to posting in Princeton's PAM portfolio accounting and management software.
Investors can propose an order and check its impact for compliance with various investor or client rules and policies, or check its impact using any electronic model the investor is using.
TOM also provides aggregate numbers on open and placed orders, and provides details of open orders. Users can view the information in connection with an individual security or all of the securities in a portfolio.
Princeton's other new program is PAM Modeling. It is a strategic portfolio asset modeling system that presents various profiles and identifies exposure limits using a range of criteria -- including security identification, issuer, country of origin, currency, manager and maturity date. Users of PAM Modeling can define specific portfolio categories and use them to compare one portfolio against another.
Separately, Equity Trustees Pty. Ltd., Melbourne, Australia, has licensed PAM for Mutual Funds investment management software.
Rietumu Banka, Riga, Latvia, has licensed Princeton's PAM for Securities and PAM for Mutual Funds, investment management and accounting software.
Deere & Co., Moline, Ill., has licensed PAM for Securities, PAM Custodian Trade Notification and Princeton Cash and Market Data Acquisition and Import software modules.
For more information, call Gordon Gacek at Princeton Financial, at (609) 987-2400.
SS&C releases total loan accounting software
WINDSOR, Conn. -- SS&C Technologies Inc. has released software for total loan accounting, servicing and asset management.
LMS 2000 combines the capabilities of SS&C's FILMS 2000 and MLMS loan accounting systems into a comprehensive loan management tool.
LMS 2000 will integrate the loan management process -- from application and commitment, to servicing and accounting, through loan disposition.
The Windows-based 32-bit client/server LMS 2000 system will leverage the reporting power of a Microsoft SQL Server database, and is fully Y2K compliant.
The software, according to the company, meets industry standards for: commitment and pipeline tracking; internal and external investor servicing and accounting; reporting; portfolio analytics; imaging and geographical mapping; and asset disposition.
LMS 2000 will be delivered via multiple functional areas and modules that allow the loan asset to be broken into cash-flow tiers, each with separate terms, with multilevel accounting and complete cash management tracking.
It also tracks information needed to ensure loan security, including appraisals, operating statements, rent rolls and inspections and also offers modules for mass payment processing, escrow processing, loan overview and investor reporting.
POSIT volume increases 57% in 1998
NEW YORK -- The number of shares crossed using POSIT, an electronic stock crossing system, increased 57% in 1998 to 5.8 billion shares from 3.7 billion shares in 1997, said officials with Investment Technology Group Inc., developers of POSIT.
POSIT allows pension funds, money management firms and others to cross stocks electronically and confidentially with virtually no market impact and at low commission costs.
In the past eight quarters, POSIT has had a quarterly compound volume growth rate of nearly 9%.
Steve Hemmerick can be reached at [email protected]
