Merchant Capital Selects Kinetic Partners for Risk Management and Valuation
Merchant Capital’s UCITS III platform for hedge fund managers has appointed Kinetic Partners to manage risk management systems across the entire platform. Merchant Capital enables asset managers to quickly and efficiently launch UCITS compliant investment vehicles to the European market. Funds using the platform take approximately four to six weeks to launch, a process that...
Columbus Avenue Consulting is First Client for SunGard’s Revamped FastVal Solution
Following SunGard’s upgrade of the technology platform underlying FastVal last year, SunGard has netted its first client of 2010 for the valuations solution in the form of global fund administrator Columbus Avenue Consulting. The firm, which is focused exclusively on the hedge fund market, is the first client to go live on version 3.0 of...
SEC’s Proposed Revisions to Money Market NAV Reporting Could Pose Significant Data Challenge
This week the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has added another set of proposals to its regulatory to do list, this time in the form of new reporting requirements for money market funds. The rules, should they be passed, would require these funds to regularly report their net asset value (NAV) to the regulator,...
Markit Confirms Details of General Atlantic Acquisition of 7.5% Stake
US-based private equity firm General Atlantic has acquired a 7.5% stake in pricing and valuations supplier Markit, which is currently majority owned by a consortium of sell side and buy side firms, in return for a US$250 million investment in the company. A spokesperson from Markit confirms the details of the deal, which values the...
S&P’s Eccleston Discusses Decision Behind Formation of New Valuation & Risk Strategies Group
The recent restructuring of Standard & Poor’s Fixed Income Risk Management Services (FIRMS) division to combine its securities evaluations, valuations services and market research teams into one group is all part of the vendor’s strategy to provide a more joined up approach to the market, explains Lou Eccleston, FIRMS’ executive managing director, to Reference Data Review....
Pricing Partners and Pyxis Systems Sign Agreement on Price-it Online Distribution in India
Pricing Partners announced today that Pyxis Systems, a provider of technology solutions and services to the global financial derivatives industry, has chosen its revaluation platform Price-it Online to address their requirements in performing independent revaluation of complex OTC derivatives for a rapidly growing Indian market. This agreement is the first of what hopes to be...
Numerix to Provide Pricing Models for Thomson Reuters Risk Management Software Suite
Numerix, a provider of cross-asset analytics for the structuring, valuation and risk analysis of derivatives and structured products, today announced Thomson Reuters will extend Numerix’s vanilla – exotics pricing solutions and risk analytics in Thomson Reuters Kondor+ Suite and TopOffice solutions. Financial service firms using Thomson Reuters Kondor + Suite to build and trade structured...
Pricing Transparency and Liquidity Risk are Top of Investors’ List of Concerns, Says SEI Survey
Institutional investors investing in the hedge fund market are more concerned about issues around pricing transparency and liquidity risk than ever before, according to a recent survey conducted by investment management solution vendor SEI and consultancy firm Greenwich Associates. These issues have even surpassed concerns over poor performance of these funds, says Phil Masterson, managing...
Callable and Putable Bonds added to SIX Telekurs’ Fair Value Pricing Service
SIX Telekurs has enhanced its Fair Value Pricing Service by adding a new asset class and hence increasing the number of instruments covered to over 110,000 investment grade fixed income securities. SIX Telekurs is a provider of international financial data. Its Fair Value Pricing Service offers analytically calculated prices for roughly 110,000 investment grade fixed...
UK FSA’s Turner Talks up the Data Challenges of Altering Accounting Standards
There is a degree of tension between those seeking to reflect the “truth” with changes to accounting standards and those wishing to reflect the concerns of prudential regulators, according to UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) chairman Adair Turner. In a speech last week to the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW), Turner...