BBH Unveils Corporate Actions Tool for Institutional Asset Managers

Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH) has unveiled a suite of corporate actions workflow applications for institutional asset managers.

The applications are intended to help asset managers reduce operational, risk, and cost burdens by automating and streamlining two critical corporate actions workflow functions: notifications and responses. The applications, which are built upon BBH’s Infomediary messaging platform, have multi-party connectivity to over 2,000 SWIFT and non-SWIFT enabled service providers, including custodians, interested parties, depositories, and market data vendors.

“To process corporate action events correctly and timely is hard enough across multiple portfolio managers and multiple securities,” said BBH senior vice president Timothy Bosco. “For an institutional asset manager, the additional variable of multiple custodian banks makes it a real problem. Different banks have uneven service levels, disparate data standards, and diverse deadline requirements and communications protocols. Frankly, it can be a nightmare.”

The applications, which are grouped into two client-configurable modules –Event Management and Response Management– creates a “golden record;” highlights inconsistencies across disparate data sources; captures securities holdings positions; and submits simultaneous election responses to multiple parties, among other risk reduction, instruction, and reporting features.

As a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering, InfoAction is an online application. Users leverage BBH’s domain expertise, data processing, connectivity and Business Continuity Planning (BCP) infrastructure via direct computer-to-computer linkage and an intuitive, web user interface. As a consequence, InfoAction clients convert rapidly from standing start to production. For example, pilot and early-adopter InfoAction clients have gone from green light to Straight Through Processing (STP) with upwards of twenty custodian banks in three weeks.