SS&C Advent, a business unit within SS&C Technologies Holding Inc (SSNC: NASDAQ), provides software and software-enabled services to the global financial services industry. SS&C Advent’s selection of software and rapidly deployable software-enabled services allows its clients to automate and integrate front-office functions such as trading and modelling. In the middle-office, these functions extend to portfolio, collateral and FX management and reporting, while in the back-office, they include accounting, performance measurement and reconciliation.
“Our solutions enable clients to focus on core operations, better monitor and manage investment performance and risk, improve operating efficiency, and reduce operating costs,” comments Katherine Pearce, Vice President, product Management and Solutions Consulting.
Institutional investors continue to use segregated managed accounts as they seek out the most optimal way to allocate to hedge funds, with both public commingled platforms as well as private platforms continuing to record annual growth.
This is where SS&C Advent’s Geneva World Investor solution comes into play. In short, the system streamlines investor servicing workflows for investor management, accounting, fee calculations and reporting. The system allows fund managers and fund administrators the ability to confidently handle a wide range of complex structures and managed accounts.
Pearce confirms that many of the 375-plus clients on the Geneva platform offer separately managed accounts for their investors in order to accommodate their specific needs.
“The Geneva suite of products helps position our clients for business growth and provides the flexibility required for not only managed accounts, but a range of structures as well. At its core, Geneva is the industry-leading general ledger solution, designed to ensure the integrity and timeliness of operations and accounting data across the firm,” says Pearce.
To underscore its importance, SS&C Advent currently commits approximately 18 per cent of revenue to R&D to the Geneva suite of products. A significant part of that investment is committed to investor reporting “to ease the creation of customised content without the need or associated cost of developers”.
“Affirmation of these enhancements includes our endorsement of the Institution Limited Partners Association (ILPA) Reporting Template within Geneva World Investor, ‘Reporting Views’ to streamline report creation and a reporting data store to facilitate myriad custom reporting needs. This acknowledgement is one mark of our commitment to continuously innovating to give our clients the best tools available,” explains Pearce.
In her view, a superior managed account technology is one that understands and continues to support its clients’ operational needs. Geneva’s unique and purpose built architecture, she says, allows firms to scale their business and pursue new opportunities without adding operational overhead.
When asked whether she is confident that the uptake of managed accounts within the hedge fund space will continue, Pearce swiftly remarks: “The simple answer is yes. Managers are now willing to accommodate their investors’ requests for preferential fee treatments and managed accounts in order to attract large institutional investors.
“With Geneva, we’ve been focused on building out technology to support the associated fee calculations such as the growing popularity of the 1 or 30 model, where investors are willing to pay for managers who outperform, but not also pay a management fee; hence the ‘or’, concludes Pearce. n
