SunGard has launched a hosted version of its Front Arena solution for hedge fund portfolio management, risk management and operations management. SunGard’s Front Arena is a cross-asset solution that provides trade capture, real-time profit & loss, position control and risk management capabilities. It helps hedge funds, traditional asset managers and other alternative investment managers to effectively and efficiently identify risk and exposure.
Hedge funds and asset managers face constricting infrastructure and IT budgets. At the same time, they have to address increasing pressure from institutional investors to demonstrate that they have robust control over the mission-critical aspects of their businesses. Many hedge funds and alternative asset managers are therefore turning to hosted delivery, rather than in-house installation. SunGard’s Front Arena hosted solution helps reduce the infrastructure burden by eliminating the need for customers to employ large IT teams to manage and maintain their own hardware, software, pricing, data and disaster recovery. It also allows customers to deploy scarce resources to focus on core competencies and alpha-generating activities. The hosted delivery method also offers rapid implementation without compromise in functionality.
Denise Valentine, senior analyst, Aite Group commented: “The difficult market environment over these last couple of years has forced managers to reduce expenditures while growing new assets. The hosted service provider deployment option reduces software implementation costs over an installation version. Hosted deployment offers a financial and time shortcut to obtaining needed technology”.
Paul Compton, head of product management for SunGard’s alternative investments business, said: “For many small- to mid-tier hedge funds, the cost of managing and continuously maintaining installed software has proved to be onerous. SunGard’s hosted Front Arena solution helps these firms reduce the cost of their operations, focus resources on running their business, and provide infrastructure that investors increasingly demand. Front Arena’s hosted solution makes the full functionality of Front Arena’s installed application attainable to almost any hedge fund, regardless of assets under management (AUM).”
Customers of the hosted solution have access to the full functionality of Front Arena’s installed application with the added benefits of regular Front Arena software upgrades, system back-up, disaster recovery and remote accessibility. SunGard also provides full end-to-end responsibility and ownership for both the application and its environment. In addition, Front Arena can be integrated with SunGard’s APT and Monis solutions, helping customers to model their portfolios with multi-factor risk models, price and analyze convertibles and optimize their portfolios. Both APT and
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