Options, the leading managed service and IT infrastructure provider to the global capital markets industry, has today announced that the
Minnesota-based hedge fund, Whitebox Advisors, has selected Options as its new managed IT provider. The deal has seen Whitebox migrate its entire global technology stack, which was previously managed internally, to the Options platform.
Whitebox, founded in 2000, currently has over USD4.4 billion under management with offices in New York, Austin, London and Sydney, in addition to its Minneapolis headquarters. Options is currently servicing over 120 users in the US, the UK and Australia as well as remote home offices. The IT infrastructure provider has also established a presence in Minneapolis as a result of the deal.
Whitebox is leveraging Options’ managed platform and managed application solutions, Core and Momentum. Core is a complete business technology solution, providing a robust and resilient technology foundation for day-to-day business communication, regulatory compliance and operations management. Momentum is a fully managed and optimised financial application hosting service for proprietary and vendor applications spanning the front, middle and back-office.
General Counsel and Chief Operating Officer for Whitebox, Mark Strefling, says: “When it came to outsourcing our infrastructure platform, we looked at a number of vendors in the space, carrying out a rigorous due diligence process. In the end, Options was the clear choice. The firm has been providing cloud services to the financial industry for over 10 years and we found them to be unrivalled in terms of experience, right across the team. In addition, the platform is cost-effective, agile and will allow us to scale quickly in each of the three continents Whitebox operates on.”
“We’re delighted to partner with Whitebox in what is another exciting deal for Options”, says Nigel Kneafsey (pictured), founder and CEO of Options. “From the outset, we felt we were the only provider that could meet the challenge of taking their current internally managed solution and deploying it globally. It was a testing selection process but one that only highlights further our core capabilities and experience in providing best-in-class managed services to the financial services industry. For Whitebox, the migration has resulted in increased levels of uptime and better, more specialised support across all business critical functions. Crucially, the move to the Options platform has also brought about significant cost savings, globally.”
Callum Runcie, Head of Buy Side Sales for Options, says: “Increasingly, firms that traditionally managed their infrastructure internally are looking to migrate to the Options platform. The industry-wide drive to find greater costs efficiencies, better flexibility and reliability in terms of performance has seen a number of leading global hedge funds choose Options as their managed infrastructure provider in the last 12 months. We are delighted Whitebox are among those who have made the move."
