PARTNER CONTENT
Watson Wheatley, named Technology Provider of the Year: Client Services at the Hedgeweek European Awards 2025, is a leading provider of reconciliation and portfolio analytics software to hedge funds, asset managers, commodities traders and private equity firms. Tom Wheatley, COO, outlines what sets the company apart and how it helps clients exploit market opportunities while navigating operational challenges.
Please describe your core service offering and how it uniquely addresses the current needs of European hedge fund managers.
Our core product is our iRecs data aggregation and reconciliation solution. It ingests data from internal systems, prime brokers, administrators and data repositories to provide daily position, trade, balance, cash flow, market value, P&L, NAV, EMIR and many other reconciliations. The tool also gives the ability to manage exceptions and automate resolution of breaks.
What three key differentiators of your business and service suite have most contributed to your success in the European market?
Our domain knowledge sets us apart from other similar software providers. All our senior team have extensive experience in asset management or hedge funds previously and this carries over into the design of the products and our ability to work with operations teams in the alternatives space.
Our level of responsiveness and customer service is another area we are regularly complimented on. We have a UK-based support team with a high service level agreement and quick turnaround time both for queries and also change requests. We were also pleased to be recognised for our client service by being nominated for and then winning a category recently in the Hedgeweek EU Awards.
Our speed of implementation is another area that sets us apart. We are able to rapidly deploy new, templated reconciliations with pre-defined connections to prime brokers and administrators so that hedge fund managers can get up and running within days. We recently completed an implementation for a newly launched fund with three prime brokers, one administrator and an EMIR reconciliation in just two days.
How have your services specifically helped hedge fund clients navigate operational complexities and market challenges throughout 2024-25?
We see more funds onboarding SMA’s and our system is able to quickly add new connections to administrators or prime brokers without lots of testing or custom building. The product is virtually turn-key in comparison with the self-build products out there where many funds are essentially building the same thing but in silos. We have a good view of the hedge fund space and are able to provide more out of the box tooling with templates and pre-existing connectivity to make sure we aren’t duplicating work during each client implementation. Another recent change was the EMIR refit where we adapted to the changes and got our clients up and running shortly after the new data was available.
What technological innovation or service enhancement introduced in the past 12 months has delivered the most meaningful impact for your clients?
Our introduction of the AFFIRM product for trade affirmation with executing brokers has enabled early-adopter clients to reduce manual processing and avoid use of more costly systems. We built this in collaboration with an existing client in Hong Kong and have significant interest in the new product. We are about to start running some further proof of concepts with interested parties.
Beyond Europe, which regions are you experiencing the strongest growth, and how are you adapting your service offering to meet the distinct needs of these markets?
We are experiencing strong growth in North America and more recently have lots of interest from APAC. This has led us to open an office in New York and we have recently started working with an experienced salesperson in New York. We expect to sign some landmark clients in the near future and are looking to expand the team and our support hours to cover different timezones.
Tom Wheatley, COO, Watson Wheatley – Tom is COO at Watson Wheatley and has a background in investment operations working for both The Bank of New York and Cazenove Capital Management in London. He previously had a career in motorsport as a driver, instructor and operations manager both in the UK and North America. Tom holds a BSc (Hons.) in Motorsport Management from the University of Wales, the Executive MBA from Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and the Investment Management Certificate.
