PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Employees' Retirement System of Rhode Island hired Complete Business Solutions Inc. to provide it with a new pension administration system.
The CBSI system will replace a mainframe system that was developed internally in the '60s and '70s, said Frank Karpinski, assistant director for finance at the $6.6 billion pension fund.
The new system will allow for image processing, increased workflow, benefit computation and data conversion, Mr. Karpinski said.
He expects implementation to take about 40 months.
Princeton, NewtonPartners form PAM partnership
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Princeton Financial Systems has formed a strategic partnership with NewtonPartners Inc. to provide consulting and programming services for users of PAM investment management systems.
NewtonPartners, Sacramento, Calif., has been helping PAM users for some time, especially with Princeton Financial's PAM Software Development Kit, a toolkit allowing users to build customized add-on systems, reports and import/export applications around PAM.
NewtonPartners is expected to be the provider of choice for PAM clients who have purchased the kit and are unable to put it to work, a spokesman said.
Separately, MD Management Ltd. and Polar Securities Inc. have licensed PAM programs and services for mutual funds -- Polar Securities uses PAM for mutual funds because of the internal ledger capabilities the product offered.
Ottawa-based MD Management is replacing the MPower system from Star Data Systems Inc., Toronto, and also will use some of Princeton's other products for performance attribution monitoring, automatic position reconciliation and loading data from market data providers.
Toronto-based Polar Securities, a hedge fund manager, also licensed the module for loading data from market data providers.
Merrill Lynch hires Ryan to lead e-commerce initiatives
NEW YORK -- Michael P. Ryan has been appointed to lead some of Merrill Lynch's e-commerce initiatives.
In conjunction with Direct Markets, Merrill Lynch's institutional e-commerce division, he will be in charge of developing Internet-based equity capital raising platforms on iDeal. According to a spokesman, iDeal allows companies to raise capital for IPOs, traditional bond issues, convertible bonds and high-yield bonds via the Internet. Institutional investors now have access to the site.
Mr. Ryan had been the global head of equity capital markets for Merrill Lynch and is now chairman of the area.
Hedge fund support provider hires Reuters for data, software
NEW YORK -- GlobeOp Financial Services, a new firm providing back-office support to hedge fund firms, hired Reuters to provide financial data and its Kondor+ position tracking and risk management system.
Under the agreement, GlobeOp will provide Kondor+ access to clients. GlobeOp's clients will use the software to input trades and to receive real-time valuation and risk management reports.
Spare, Kaplan licenses Financial Models suite
SAN FRANCISCO -- Spare, Kaplan, Bischel & Associates has licensed the Financial Models product suite.
The money management firm will use FMC's portfolio modeling system, trade order management system, portfolio management system, automated reconciliation system, automated client reporting system, and composite reporting and attribution system. It had been using an internally developed system.
CheckFree acquires Frontline products
JERSEY CITY, N.J. -- CheckFree Investment Services acquired the software, products and intellectual property of Boston-based Frontline Technologies.
Frontline Technologies is known for its Downloader software, which is used in transferring bank custodian data to M-Watch, a performance reporting and evaluation system from the M"bius Group division of CheckFree Investment Services.
CheckFree officials said Frontline software will be used as a building block in creating a similar data interface between custodians and CheckFree's APL platform, which is used by money managers for entering and maintaining account data, managing trades and measuring portfolio performance.
Peter Brock, founder of Frontline, will work out of CheckFree's Boston office. Frontline's programming staff also will become part of CheckFree Investment Services.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
