Digital Assets Report

Newsletter

Like this article?

Sign up to our free newsletter

New PerTrac product targets funds of funds and institutional portfolios

Related Topics

PerTrac Financial Solutions is rolling out the beta release of its latest product, PerTrac Portfolio Manager, a software application designed to help funds of funds and institutional inves

PerTrac Financial Solutions is rolling out the beta release of its latest product, PerTrac Portfolio Manager, a software application designed to help funds of funds and institutional investors create, monitor and manage multi-manager portfolios of alternative investments.

The system was developed in conjunction with Caliburn Capital Partners, a fund of funds manager with offices in London and Geneva. It aims to help investment professionals with multi-manager portfolios be more productive, make better decisions by having the right information at their fingertips and, as a result, deliver stronger returns.

PerTrac Portfolio Manager allows investors to manage their portfolios more effectively by tracking subscription, redemption and notice periods, modelling liquidity across the portfolio, setting alerts for various risk parameters and tracking exposures within a single software tool.

‘When we looked into the broader needs of funds of funds and investors using the PerTrac Analytical Platform and PerTrac CMS, we saw that the portfolio management process was highly under-automated, costly to scale with asset growth, and fraught with the risk of potential errors,’ says PerTrac president and chief executive Gerry Mintz.

‘The vast majority of portfolio management and tracking is currently performed on a series of linked spreadsheets and other adjunct, unintegrated software programmes. This not only creates an inefficient workflow for investors and funds of funds, but it also opens the door for missed opportunities, potentially costly errors, and compliance problems.

‘PerTrac Portfolio Manager is designed to provide a high level of automation and information consolidation for the all-important, day-to-day business of managing portfolios by putting information at the portfolio manager’s fingertips when they need it.’

Jeremy Rowlands, chief executive of Caliburn, says: ‘We are tremendously excited about the PerTrac Portfolio Manager product, which we have been using day-to-day for quite some time. Our institutional investor-focused approach to the fund of funds business requires enhanced tools for risk monitoring, thematic portfolio management and the ability to provide greater transparency to our investors.

‘Therefore, having a comprehensive tool that consolidates information, streamlines our portfolio management workflow and helps us react better and make faster decisions in an ever-changing investment landscape is crucial to our business. In addition, a comprehensive tool of this type gives confidence to our investors that we are able to effectively manage our business as we grow both in assets under management and in new products.’

According to Rowlands, Caliburn identified the requirements of such a system and built an initial version, but decided to approach PerTrac to help refine, implement and commercialise the product.

‘The complexity of bringing such a project to conclusion required specialist expertise that Caliburn did not have and did not want to develop in-house,’ he says. ‘Further, when we thought about the ongoing cost of maintenance and enhancements, we realised that we would have to continue to make substantial investments to keep the system current.

‘It quickly became clear that partnering with PerTrac was the ideal solution to the problem, as we would get the system we wanted, benefit from the ongoing enhancements that PerTrac would make in response to market needs, and avoid the high cost of maintaining a proprietary system on our own.’

Adds Mintz: ‘Together, we are well positioned to address the needs and challenges of investment professionals running multi-manager portfolios. Caliburn’s contributions to the construction of this software ensure that it meets the high expectations of real-world funds of funds and institutional investor clients.’

The features offered by PerTrac Portfolio Manager including a fund and share class information database; detailed terms capture including lockups, fees and penalties and notice periods; trade capture; detailed liquidity analysis; cash management, including recurring and ad-hoc costs; automated portfolio performance and NAV calculations, series roll-ups; currency hedging; watch list of funds under consideration; multi-time frame performance statistics; long and short exposures based on equity, beta, geography, and industry sector; portfolio risk monitoring including risk limits and risk flags; customisable interface; and comprehensive and flexible reporting

The beta release of the application is now feature and code complete. A number of experienced PerTrac clients will use the software extensively over the coming months to ensure a high-quality final commercial release later this year. Pricing for the new system has not yet been announced.

The new application is the third major software product from PerTrac, following the PerTrac Analytical Platform, used for investment analysis, asset allocation, and performance reporting, and PerTrac CMS, used for managing aspects of the investor relations, capital raising and investment management workflow. The three applications share information to form an integrated workflow platform, and through APIs can communicate with other systems within an organisation, including accounting packages and proprietary software.

PerTrac Financial Solutions was founded in 1996 to create a suite of software solutions for investment professionals. The PerTrac Analytical Platform is now is used by more than 1,700 clients in 45 countries, including banks, brokerage firms, consultants, plan sponsors, family offices, investment managers and funds of funds.

PerTrac CMS, which came with the firm’s January 2006 acquisition of Whittaker Garnier, is used by more than 250 alternative investment firms around the world. PerTrac Financial Solutions has headquarters in New York and offices in London, Hong Kong, Reno, Memphis and Tokyo.

Caliburn Capital Partner, which was founded in 2005 and has offices in London and Geneva, is a fund of hedge fund manager with a thematic investment approach and a team of 34 staff. The firm has financial banking from Japan’s Mizuho International.

Like this article? Sign up to our free newsletter

Most Popular

Further Reading

Featured