Performance Benchmarking 2011: Valuations in North American Buy-Side Institutions

Bloomberg swept the board in A-Team Group’s Performance Benchmarking survey of North American valuations services for the buy side. The report – sponsored by SIX Telekurs and Standard & Poor’s and available for free download below – surveyed buy-side managers on key trends, budgets and experiences with vendor services.Bloomberg’s valuations services were ranked No. 1 in the key Overall Satisfaction with Vendors category, and won six of the survey’s seven other top-level categories, including Coverage, Timeliness, Customer Service & Support, Innovation, Transparency and Value for Money. Markit took the No. 1 slot in the all-important Accuracy category.

The survey also ranked suppliers by asset class, with categories including Complex OTC Derivatives, Loans and other over-the-counter instruments. Co-sponsors SIX Telekurs took the top slot for the quality of its Investment Grade Corporate Bond coverage, while Standard & Poor’s won in the US Government Bonds and Municipal Bonds categories.

“The mis-pricing of assets is an area that regulators have been scrutinising increasingly since the credit crunch, and it’s something that financial institutions are working hard to get right. As a result, valuations data services have taken on a new importance, but knowing where to source the most accurate and timely data from can be difficult,” said Angela Wilbraham, CEO of A-Team Group and author of the report. “It’s something that we’ve examined in-depth in order to provide transparency into the quality of various data services through our benchmarking study.”

Survey respondents ranked valuations suppliers across key performance factors. Their responses were used to generate a weighted score, and yielded these top-line results: