Virtus Partners has launched a new hedge fund administration service focused on credit and fixed income managers. The offering is built on SunGard’s VPM portfolio accounting and reporting solution, part of SunGard’s Hedge360 suite.
Alternative investment fund managers looking to invest in credit products across the bank loan and corporate debt space are often faced with a bottleneck at their administrator, making it difficult to cope with the complexity of credit investment strategies. This also limits the fund’s range of potential strategies, impacting returns.
Virtus is overcoming these challenges by combining its expertise in credit and fixed income strategies and automated platform for handling bank loans with SunGard’s VPM platform. Together, clients’ middle- and back-office functions will be fully supported as they trade into and out of positions, helping to mitigate associated operational risks and cost. Virtus’ fund services launched with a multibillion-dollar mandate for the US and Europe.
Jeffery Law, head of hedge fund services at VP Fund Services, the wholly-owned subsidiary of Virtus Partners Holdings, says: “We selected VPM on the basis of its flexible architecture and easy integration with Virtus’ existing platform, which allowed a rapid time-to-market for the fund administration service. Additionally, the transparency afforded by VPM gives our clients the capacity to log directly into our portfolio accounting system on a read-only basis to examine the processing and service in real-time. This is hugely important given the emphasis on transparency driven by existing regulation, such as the Alternative Investment Fund Manager Directive (AIFMD) and future rules including the review of the Markets in Financial Instrument Directive (MiFID II).
Scott Alintoff (pictured), chief operating officer – VPM, SunGard’s asset management business, says: “SunGard’s VPM is a real-time, multi-currency portfolio accounting and position management solution for hedge funds that provides the scalability that Virtus needs. Virtus is now able to support new lines of revenue for alternative investment managers who previously may have faced high operational barriers to entry.”
