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The need to implement artificial intelligence (AI) into daily practices in order to cope with regulatory pressures and data management, were reoccurring themes during this year’s TSAM London event.
The increasing demand to transfer to an AI enabled model, reduce costs and overcome challenging geopolitical environments, are central issues facing the asset management industry this year.
During one session exploring the AI revolution in asset management, the majority of the audience, 78 per cent believed that the potential of AI will give their firms a competitive advantage.
Despite this, the asset management industry remains slow to fully embrace
Trade Informatics (TI), an independent provider of quantitative analytics and systematic trading solutions to institutional asset managers, has appointed Andrew Shortland as Chief Executive Officer EMEA.
Shortland will be responsible for the continued expansion of Trade Informatics’ international client base as well as building a team of data analysts and client service professionals to provide local support to the clients based outside of the US.
Based out of the London office, Shortland will report to Matthew Celebuski, Global CEO of TI.
Prior to joining TI, Shortland was Head of International Equities at Jefferies and helped build the firm’s
Thinknum, a leading provider of web-sourced alternative data, has secured USD11.6 million in Series A funding round. Participants included Green Visor Capital, one of the original investors in the firm’s USD1 million seed round in 2014.
Thinknum will use the fresh capital to fund its continuing growth and allow it to further penetrate the institutional investment community and corporate market.
Thinknum’s SaaS-based platform empowers anyone who allocates capital – from “quantamental”-style investors to corporate strategy groups seeking an edge on the competition – to harness the disparate, unstructured data sources available today as a result of online commerce and
Pzena Investment Management, a USD37 billion equity manager based in New York, is to implement IHS Markit’s Enterprise Data Management (EDM) solution.
The firm will be using EDM to master securities and issuers and will also leverage the solution as a data hub for prices, accounts and other entities in the future.
“Following an internal data and operations review, we decided that it was the right time to invest in an enterprise data management solution,” says Evan Fire, Chief Information & Operations Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at Pzena Investment Management. “We conducted a review of several EDM
Fonetic has launched new enhancements to its communications surveillance and trade reconstruction platform Trade Comms Suite.
These updates will allow financial institutions to adopt voice and communication surveillance quicker while taking advantage of the most accurate voice surveillance platform currently available.
Among the additions are improved precision to financial language models and speech signal treatment. The new surveillance engine, which has been evaluated against the leading voice surveillance vendors in numerous proofs of concepts, has surpassed the nearest competitors by 15 per cent according to the data received. Apart from offering high accuracy in English, Fonetic is available in more
Medalist Partners, an alternative asset management firm specialising in structured credit and asset-backed lending, has acquired a majority stake in JMP Credit Advisors (JMP Credit Advisors), a US-based investment manager with expertise in managing collateralised loan obligations (CLOs), from a subsidiary of JMP Group.
The vendor will remain as a minority investor in JMP Credit Advisors and an investor in the CLOs that JMP Credit Advisors manages.
As a result of the transaction, JMP Credit Advisors has been renamed Medalist Partners Corporate Finance, and it will continue to manage three CLOs with approximately USD1.2 billion in assets under management. JMP Credit
Janney Montgomery Scott, a full-service wealth management, capital markets, and asset management firm, is to acquire FIG Partners, an Atlanta-based investment banking and research firm.
The experienced team at FIG Partners brings nationally recognised expertise within the community bank sector to Janney’s existing financial institutions sector coverage. The transaction, expected to close in the second quarter, is Janney’s second investment bank acquisition in less than 12 months, following the addition of HighBank Advisors in May 2018.
“We are thrilled to add FIG Partners to the Janney team. This is a unique opportunity for two firms with shared values and similar
Acuris, a BC Partners and GIC-backed provider of global data, intelligence, research and analysis, has acquired Blackpeak, an investigative research firm.
Co-founded by Jack Clode and Chris Leahy in 2011, Blackpeak has grown to become a premier provider of complex due diligence, research and investigation services, particularly in relation to capital markets, M&A and private equity. The team’s experience, strong brand and deep customer relationships have allowed Blackpeak to gain a market leadership position and expand internationally, all while generating consistent profitability.
Headquartered in Hong Kong, Blackpeak now operates from key financial and economic centers, including Singapore, Tokyo, Shanghai, Beijing,
Learnlight, a global language, intercultural skills and soft skills training provider, has acquired Arenalingua, a leading German language training company, as part of its European expansion strategy.
The acquisition, backed by Beech Tree Private Equity and Learnlight’s management team, follows Learnlight’s merger of Ispeakuspeak and Training Express and the subsequent acquisition of Communicaid nearly two years ago. The Arenalingua acquisition consolidates Learnlight’s position in the German market, where it already has Blue Chip clients such as Siemens and Deutsche Telekom.
Arenalingua was founded in 2003 and has offices in key commercial centres in Germany comprising Frankfurt, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and
SmartStream Technologies, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM) solutions provider, has partnered with Cassini Systems, a lading provider of pre and post trade margin analytics for buy side derivatives trading, to help financial institutions comply with BCBS-IOSCOmargin requirements for uncleared OTC derivatives.
BCBS-IOSCO defines rules for margin requirements on Uncleared Over-the-Counter (OTC) derivatives known as Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR). ISDA has developed a Standard Initial Margin Model (SIMM) that can be used by market participants to provide a transparent and standardised margin methodology of bi-lateral trades. The roll out of UMR rules has now reached the buy side with phase
