Citisoft, a specialist investment management consulting firm, has commenced its 15th systems evaluation and selection on behalf of alternative investment clients in the U.K. (onshore and offshore), Europe and the Far East.
Citisoft has conducted systems evaluations and selections for clients including: hedge fund and fund of hedge fund managers, alternative investment divisions of traditional asset managers, private equity managers and hedge fund and fund of hedge fund administrators.
Over the last three years, a new market for consulting services has emerged from the asset management industry, driven by new demand for services related to alternative investments. In addition to adopting sell-side techniques, which traditionally utilised alternative products for improved returns and risk management, buy-side firms have also begun manufacturing their own products such as internal research and fully synthetic products such as LDI and structured credit.
“It is a testament to buy-side creativity that this new market has developed at such a rapid pace,” says Sunil Chadda, head of Citisoft’s Hedge Funds and Derivatives Practice. “Because Citisoft has invested time understanding and working in this market, the firm has been able to identify significant trends and their potential impact on its clients. As a result of this Citisoft has been able to build a successful practice specifically to service this market.”
Citisoft identifies and evaluates vendors providing functionality and sub-sets of functionality for clients for the following areas, across all asset and instrument classes:
– trading and risk
– pre- and post-trade compliance checking
– decision support
– pricing and valuation
– accounting
– ISDA document management
– collateral and margin monitoring and management
– performance contribution/measurement
– fund of hedge funds/hedge fund administration, sub-administration and pricing