U.K. investment manager Threadneedle Asset Management is implementing a one-stop data hub for corporately shared data, under its Investment Information Services (IIS) business unit. The system – to be called DataNet – will use a range of Eagle Investment Systems Corp.’s reference data and portfolio management solutions.
The DataNet project is aimed at establishing a single distribution platform that will support the needs of all of Threadneedle’s business units. “We aim to provide high-quality data and information services to client departments across our investment process and want to ensure the recent investment in business systems for fund managers, compliance, and for our distribution business are running on premium information,” says Mark Stancombe, head of IIS at Threadneedle. For managing data across the enterprise, DataNet will make use of the Eagle Reference Manager, a security reference data management, validation and workflow system. In addition, Threadneedle plans to use the Eagle Pace data hub and portfolio management system, the Eagle Message Centre and Eagle Portal systems. The DataNet platform is aimed at ensuring data consumed by investment process applications is consistent and received in a standardized manner. “The project has been carefully scoped to enable Eagle Pace to provide the framework that will help Threadneedle to achieve its objectives with regards to core investment data management,” says Dave Carter, head of IT architecture at Threadneedle. DataNet will provide data quality and consistency to several internal systems, including LatentZero’s front-office trade order management system and DST International’s HiPortfolio system, as well as analytical applications used by the firm’s quantitative analysts. Threadneedle believes it will get a faster return on investment by implementing a vendor’s product set, rather than attempting to build the DataNet framework internally. This approach, according to Carter, will “mitigate business risks and underpin much improved client service.” Eagle Pace integrates data from more than 75 sources, including trading, analytics, pricing and accounting applications, providing the firm with a consistent view of its investment data. The Eagle Pace hub approach to data integration enables organizations to extract, clean, enrich and distribute data to meet all the dynamic reporting and information requirements of the enterprise. Eagle’s Reference Manager is designed to help firms simplify management and distribution of information via a centralized data repository. This can yield returns due to reductions in data management issues, exceptions created by manual processes, and operational costs. It also can improve operational efficiencies through inherent workflow and automation tools. Threadneedle, a subsidiary of American Express, is the U.K.’s third-largest investment management company, with more than £50 billion under management.
