SunGard announced that Drake Management LLC has selected Monis for pre-trade analysis and risk management.
Monis is a pricing, analysis and hedging solution for convertible bonds and other equity-linked securities, aiming to provide consistent, arbitrage-free pricing and analysis of a firm’scapital structure and its derivatives.
Drake will use Monis to price and evaluate new convertible issues, find trade opportunities and help manage the risk profile of its convertiblearbitrage strategy.
Monis provides the ability to handle the esoteric structural quirks found in many convertible bonds, including cocos, copays, HiPr structures and resets.
Drake also selected Monis to help it to improve the quality of itsconvertibles data. The Monis Data Service will provide Drake withpre-formatted and easy-to-use data on convertible bonds and other equity-linked securities. The data is compiled and cleaned from a variety of sources and includes terms and conditions and market prices on over 2,200 bonds.
Robert Herin, managing director, Drake Management, said, “We chose Monisfor its tremendous feature coverage and the strength of its single namecredit framework. Because it operates within an Excel-based framework,Monis is easy to use. It is also easily integrated with our ownproprietary trading system, Cygnet, which helps our traders to customizethe solution to their own requirements. Monis’s data, widely accepted asan industry standard, will help us enhance the efficiency of our processesand help reduce the operational risk resulting from mis-specified terms.”
Rob Mackay, managing director, Americas, SunGard’s FRONT ARENA businessunit, said, “The convertible market has matured considerably with agreater use of sophisticated quant technology and many more players. Inthis environment, accurate modeling that captures the unique features ofconvertibles and that is based on reliable data is essential to helpingfirms find trades and remain competitive.”