CAYMAN 2012 - HFMWeek

CAYMAN 2012
FINANCIAL SERVICES
due diligence to ensure the solution not only adheres to
operational and technical best practices (SAS70, disaster
recovery and trade capture,) but is able (and willing)
to adapt quickly in response to the alternative industry’s
ever-changing regulatory and investment demands. At a
bare minimum, technology platforms of service providers
claiming to offer automated managed account administration
should possess the following as a standard offering:
• Transparency: Daily centralised access to portfolio
holdings, transactions and P&L for each underlying
account
• Aggregation: The ability to harness deep visibility
across the platform as a whole, and on an accountby-account
basis; identify exposure by position and
sector (for example, single stock risk across the platform)
• Daily pricing non-listed products
• Daily exposure and profit and loss reporting
• Daily custom risk extracts
• Straight through processing and trade capture of all
listed and non-listed security types
• Automated security setup and corporate action processing
• Automated portfolio event processing (coupons,
maturities and swap payments)
• NAV reporting and daily portfolio accounting, includes
shadow accounting
• Automated reconciliation with prime brokers and
fund administrators
• Data warehousing, custom reporting and on-line
data analysis
• Capabilities and resources available to calculate a
daily NAV for all strategies
Without these standard features, it is difficult to deliver
a managed account service offering, particularly one which
is scalable.
MANAGED ACCOUNT PLATFORM ADMINISTRATION – BUY OR
BUILD
The expression “mission critical” is often heard in discussions
regarding the managed account administration environment
and its supporting technology. As the alterna-
EXISTING TECHNOLOGIES AND
MONTH-END CENTRIC SYSTEMS
ARE BECOMING ANTIQUATED
IN FAVOUR OF MORE FLEXIBLE
PLATFORMS
”
tive industry moves closer to the mutual fund’s reporting
expectations, existing technologies and month-end centric
systems are becoming antiquated in favour of more
flexible platforms that are costly to build and maintain.
The financial and resource commitments of a managed
account platform service offering have led service providers
and large investment managers alike to leverage
the investments made by technology vendors to provide
turnkey solutions.
Turnkey solutions can help avoid large initial out-ofpocket
expenses associated with hiring seasoned CTOs
and an experienced IT staff to start from scratch. The key
to ensuring these vendors provide sustainable value are
solid service level agreements, which cover wide scale
platform support and obligations to support future development
to handle tailored and sometimes bespoke
requirements of key clients and client prospects. For
fund managers seeking to launch or fill the gaps of their
managed account product, we see the quickest time to
implement is leveraging a solution or service provider
that has already put the time and cost into building a
flexible solution.
DEUTSCHE BANK’S ALTERNATIVE FUND SERVICES
In the HFMWeek 2012 European Hedge Fund Services
Awards, DB AFS was named the Best Fund Administrator
for Managed Account Services. DB AFS has built and continuously
enhances its managed account service platform
to administer one of the largest managed account platforms
in the world today. With the use of state-of-the-art
technologies, as well as proprietary tools and web portals,
DB AFS offers an industry leading managed account platform
solution coupled with its award winning fund administration
service offering. n
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