Charles River Development says that Standard Life Investments, which as over US$145 billion in assets under management, has selected the Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) for portfolio management (Charles River Manager), order management and trading (Charles River Trader), and compliance monitoring (Charles River Compliance). IMS will replace Standard Life Investments’ internal systems and will support the firm’s global equity, fixed income, money market, and derivative operations.
Standard Life Investments selected a phased implementation approach and is rolling out the system to one geographical region and one trading desk at a time. Twenty-five employees located in Montreal and responsible for US$10 billion in assets under management, began using the system in October 2003 to support the firm’s Canadian equity, fixed income, money market, and derivative operations. The Montreal implementation included Charles River’s standard interface to Princeton Financial System’s PAM accounting system. The Edinburgh implementation is now underway and the office’s first desk, Domestic UK Equities, went live in February. The implementation will now move on to Hong Kong and Boston. When the global implementation is complete at year-end, Standard Life Investments expects to have 135 users of the system worldwide across its portfolio management, trading, and compliance departments.
Charles River says Standard Life Investments conducted a comprehensive system search and tested Charles River IMS in its Edinburgh headquarters for one month prior to selection. “We are well underway in building a truly global and scalable investment management platform covering multiple asset classes. Charles River IMS will help us improve efficiency and provide the highest levels of service to our clients,” says William Littleboy, director of operations at Standard Life Investments.
“Charles River IMS puts Standard Life Investments’ trading and portfolio management staff on one common platform across the globe, which will greatly facilitate the movement of orders throughout their various offices,” adds Peter Lambertus, Charles River president and CEO. “We expect Standard Life Investments will realize significant efficiencies in terms of processing time and reduced risk.”