Following the exit of former CEO John Wise, former president Colin Close and long serving exec Keith Hale earlier this year, data management outsourcing solution vendor Netik had some serious management shoes to fill and, to this end, has added another ex-Deutsche Bank exec to its ranks in the form of Ishan Manaktala. Manaktala joins former colleague and ex-global head of Autobahn Equity at Deutsche Bank Rob Flatley, who is now CEO and president of the vendor, on the executive management team as it looks to expand its market data focus.
Manaktala will now lead the vendor’s Asian expansion, report directly to Flatley and be based in the vendor’s Bangalore operations as managing director and head of Asia. He will manage Netik’s Information Service group in India and build Netik’s operations in the Asian Pacific region, according to Flatley. “This is the first key hire in driving the future development of Netik’s goal to be the number one provider in information services to the financial community. A big part of that strategy is to increase the sophistication, depth and scope of what Netik produces from its Bangalore based organisation,” he explains.
This is all part of the master plan of Symphony Technology Group, which acquired the vendor from previous majority owner Bank of New York Mellon in 2008, as it reaches a new “milestone in evolution”, according to Andy Eckert, general partner of the private equity firm. The vendor is hoping to retain its traditional back office focus on reference data and outsourcing but is planning to expand its reach in the market data world.
The vendor already offers solutions in the index and exchange traded funds (ETF) space and is currently being used by nine out of the top 10 global sell side firms and around 40 firms in total. The solutions, Global Index Monitor and ETF Monitor, are aimed at data aggregation for the consolidation and comparison of ETF and index data within these financial institutions and were acquired with the Capco business in 2008, along with the Capco Reference Data Services (CRDS) offering.
Netik’s current revenue breakdown in terms of its three main solutions is: 20% from the ETF and index offerings; 30% from the reference data focused Global Securities Master (GSM) solution; and 50% from its more traditional outsourcing business. No doubt Symphony is hoping that the 20% will increase substantially this year under the helm of its new front office experts as it moves areas such as data management for credit risk, funding, margin, capital adequacy and regulatory reporting.
To this end, prior to his appointment at Netik, Manakala was a director and the global head of analytics for Deutsche Bank’s equities unit in New York. He was responsible for the development of incremental revenue projects for the electronic trading group and for the conceptualisation and management of an offshore trade consulting team.
Prior to Deutsche Bank, he worked for Quantitative Solutions Group (QSG) as a quantitative analyst on a team focused on supporting the vendor’s custom enterprise software for transition management providers, QSG Transition Analyst. He was also involved in the development and launch of a verification service for algorithmic trading in 2006. Before QSG, Manakala was with Russell Investment Group, focused on supporting the securities firm’s portfolio transitions group.
Much like Flatley, Manakala’s areas of expertise indicate he will likely bring a more front office focused flavour to the management team. His focus on portfolio management, market data and front office trading strategies in his previous roles should certainly stand him in good stead in helping the new management team to move Netik into the world of market data.
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