Challenge

A hedge fund manager with approximately $12B in assets under management had significant operational challenges due to the absence of an in-house middle office platform. While their back-office platform had been built out and worked well, the front-to-back office process consisted of a variety of Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheets and internally built applications. Each spreadsheet maintained its Security Master data, often in unstructured forms, and that information could often conflict with the back office. Meanwhile, other departments, such as Risk, Compliance, and Investor Relations, struggled to pull together firm-wide reporting consistently. The manual processes involved often resulted in errors and delays that inhibited their ability to grow and scale their business.

Approach

Portfolio BI successfully implemented the Portfolio BI Portfolio Management System (PBI PMS) and Portfolio BI Enterprise Data Management (PBI EDM) to facilitate a robust front-to-back office workflow, consolidate their data sources, and optimize their firm-wide operations.

The PBI PMS, powered by a flexible and powerful Security Master, became the “Golden Copy” of all security master data across all departments. The new security resolution process allowed portfolio managers to enter vital security information quickly and enabled the middle office to validate and enrich the data immediately. This data then flowed through the organization in real-time.

Front-to-back order management and trading processes were also enabled. Traders were able to quickly enter necessary trading information for the middle office to enrich immediately after. The allocation process was tied into compliance and provided immediate feedback if any investment guidelines were breached. Finally, the securities, trades, allocations, and cash entries flowed into the accounting system in a straight-through process.

The PBI EDM and PBI Price Master modules consolidated the firm’s various data sources, from OMS to Risk, Compliance, and IR, into a single, centralized source of all firm-wide data into an easy-to-use Data Warehouse with both “as-of” and “knowledge date” support.

Solution

The firm now has a much more robust and easy-to-manage operational workflow, particularly from the front and middle office, without any reliance on Microsoft Excel for security and trading data. Also, the firm has a centralized Data Management platform and Data Governance model that matches their unique strategy and business workflows. It aligns with their current and future business needs. This has increased the firm's operational efficiency and streamlined its firm-wide reporting process. They are now able to access data from a single, highly available source.