Charles River Joins With TradeWeb And Market Axess To Add FIX-Based Fixed Income Allocations

Charles River Development says it has added FIX based fixed income allocations to the latest version of its investment management platform. Version 7.2, released last month, includes new functionality that allows investment managers to allocate fixed income securities trades executed

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Charles River Development says it has added FIX-based fixed income allocations to the latest version of its investment management platform.

Version 7.2, released last month, includes new functionality that allows investment managers to allocate fixed income securities trades executed via TradeWeb and MarketAxess using the FIX protocol.

Boston-based fixed income fund manager Merganser Capital Management LP has chosen the Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) to support its fixed income operations. “The demands of the investment management business are increasingly complex,” says Rich Woerner, Senior Vice President at Merganser. “With the doubling of our assets under management and an increased focus on our core bond strategy, we have found our clients’ interest in analytical information about their portfolios is increasing at an exponential rate. We expect that Charles River IMS will be a key component in addressing these demands – providing a scalable portfolio management and compliance solution as our assets continue to grow.”

Merganser plans to integrate version 7.2 of Charles River Trader and Charles River Compliance, two of the three applications within Charles River IMS, with its proprietary portfolio management application and QED accounting system in the spring of this year. The consolidation of all Merganser’s investment management operations on a common, connected platform will help streamline workflow and improve efficiencies across the organization.

“When utilized in combination with new and forthcoming interface enhancements from trading platforms such as TradeWeb and MarketAxess, Charles River’s support for fixed income allocations via FIX will eliminate the need for traders to duplicate order entries, thus reducing the likelihood of mistakes and improving execution efficiency,” adds Shaun Hanley, vice president, technology operations at Loomis, Sayles and Company. “The efficiency benefits are compelling and should help to drive an increase in liquidity and the volume of fixed income securities available via the FIX protocol.”

“The ability to allocate trades using FIX benefits investment managers on many levels – making the allocation process easier, faster, cheaper, and less error prone,” explains Peter K. Lambertus, president and CEO at Charles River. “By partnering with MarketAxess and TradeWeb to allocate trades using FIX, we are able to offer clients superior and efficient options for fixed income execution and remain at the forefront of STP solutions for trade execution, allocation, and settlement.”

Charles River claims to be the first order management system (OMS) vendor to enter into strategic alliances and certify FIX connections with fixed income trading platforms MarketAxess and TradeWeb. Charles River IMS v7.2 uses FIX version 4.2, along with a few custom FIX 4.4 fields, to communicate allocations details to MarketAxess and TradeWeb.

“The Global Fixed Income Committee is encouraged by the efforts of our member firms and applaud efforts to support FIX 4.4,” comments Daniel Doscas, chairman of the FIX Protocol Ltd.’s Global Fixed Income Committee.

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