Examining the role that technology can play in helping hedge funds attract new investment. 

LONDON, 12 November, 2013 – Cor Financial’s Salerio, the post trade processing solutions provider to hedge fund, asset manager and 3^rd party administrator firms, has today published a whitepaper examining how automation in appropriate business critical areas of their operations can deliver meaningful commercial advantages to hedge funds.

Operational Due Diligence (ODD), is an increasingly important element in the decision making process of institutional investors. Investment performance without robust infrastructure is unlikely to convince investors to entrust their money to funds where doubts exist over operational systems and procedures.

With risk in general now such a focus for regulators, market operators and investors alike, the risk (and therefore cost) of potential errors within manual processing is one coming under increasing scrutiny in ODD assessments. The whitepaper uses post trade processing as an example of a business critical area where proving the robustness of systems and procedures can deliver significant commercial benefits.

The whitepaper also reports that there is increasing evidence that prime and executing brokers are beginning to examine the relationship between risk and reward across their customers, with particular attention to operational procedures and the quality of information provided by clients. A leading figure in investment bank global operations quoted in the paper supports the case for collaboration between asset managers, their prime brokers and their executing brokers to improve relationships and lower costs.

 Ken Skehan, Cor-FS Salerio said, “AIFMD is occupying the minds of many fund managers right now. A general requirement of the legislation is that the information flow between all parties in the trading cycle is effective. So an example of appropriate investment in technology would be confirming trades at the earliest point in the trading cycle, to ensure all subsequent flow of information is accurate and trustworthy. We also believe any size fund – even at start up – should be able to enjoy both the financial and risk related benefits brought about by increased automation.” 

Skehan continued, “Investment performance alone just isn’t enough to rely on attracting new funds. An ODD consultant we work with, cites in the paper a case of a highly successful hedge fund in terms of investment  returns, who were consistently prevented from securing new institutional investment because of significant operational flaws that were immediate ‘red flags’ to investors. It wasn’t until these were remedied that the fund was able to attract institutional investments that took it from sub $250million AUM to $1.3billion within 12 months.”

About Salerio

Salerio is a comprehensive suite of post-trade management applications designed to automate the post-trade management process, offering a flexible and robust approach to trade confirmations, trade settlement and tracking of equity trades and treasury instruments.  Its Straight-To-Processing™ delivers users reduced risks, lower operating costs and compliance with ever-evolving regulatory requirements, by enabling processing teams to always be working on the most important trades.

In the arena of matching, Salerio is platform agnostic; in addition to supporting Central Trade Matching, Salerio enables local matching at both the block and allocation level aligned to SWIFT’s Global Electronic Trading & Confirmations (GETC) initiative.  By providing choice, firms can reduce risks and lower trade transaction costs – all supported within the same workflow.

Used by leading investment managers, hedge funds and third party administrators, Salerio is one of a range of software systems from COR-FS, offering more than 20 years of specialist expertise.

All Salerio applications sit comfortably alongside existing systems to enhance processing capability without major disruption.

For further information please visit:        www.salerio.com