Boston-based Old Mutual Asset Management has selected the INDATA IMS ASP solution for its affiliate managers. The IMS ASP solution provides trade order management, portfolio accounting and reporting, performance measurement and attribution with the added benefit of INDATA providing hosting and system administration management.

The Islamic finance industry, with assets estimated at more than $750 billion, is one of the fastest growing in the world, due in part to increased acceptance of Islamic (Shari’ah or Syariah) funds. These alternative investments, which must conform to Islamic law, are increasingly attracting investors from around the world, according to Charles River Development, which also contends that technology is playing a key role in helping global investment professionals create and manage the compliance aspects of these and other ethically-based funds.

READ THE REST

SaddlePeak Asset Management, based in Santa Monica, CA has selected INDATA for front to back office functionality. SaddlePeak licensed INDATA’s IMS system for both trade order management and portfolio accounting, providing an integrated accounting and trading package to be able to respond to a rapidly expanding client base. After selecting INDATA in November 2006, SaddlePeak went live with INDATA in mid-January 2007.

EdgeTrade and Charles River Development are to collaboratively build an interface that will connect EdgeTrade’s agency algorithms with Charles River’s Investment Management System. The agreement will streamline the algorithmic trading process for EdgeTrade clients using Charles River IMS.

Miletus Trading Services has integrated its algorithmic Strategy Engines and Trade Impact Estimator services into the Charles River Development System (Charles River IMS). “Traders can now access Miletus pre-trade analytics and algorithmic trading strategies directly from the Charles River blotter,” comments Stephen Engdahl, director of product management, Charles River Development.

Charles River Development and Pipeline Trading Systems have released a bi-directional, real-time interface between the companies’ respective systems. The new interface will automatically update Pipeline’s alternative trading system (ATS) ‘watch lists’ with information from the Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) blotter. “The real-time information flow between the two systems will provide clients with a synchronized view of watch lists and completed orders directly from the Charles River IMS blotter,” according to Michael Hayes, director of connectivity and alliances at Charles River. “For example, when the Pipeline system automatically alerts traders to watch-list securities, they can easily direct an order to Pipeline from Charles River IMS. The resulting execution fills are fed directly back to the blotter.”

Charles River Development has selected the Sonic Systems’ SonicMQ enterprise message system with Sonic Continuous Availability Architecture (CAA) as the embedded messaging infrastructure within the Charles River IMS. With Sonic’s CAA, Charles River customers will gain hot fail-over and low-latency market data delivery capabilities.

Markit Group and Charles River Development are to integrate Markit’s credit pricing and reference entity data into the Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS). This new partnership will mean that Markit’s data will be consistently mapped and accessible throughout Charles River IMS for mutual customers, providing an integrated credit derivative workflow within their order management system. The XML-based data feed, available in Version 8 of Charles River IMS, will initially include data such as Markit RED, iTraxx and Dow Jones CDX constituent data, credit curves and reference entity information.

Charles River Development has released Version 8 of its front- and middle-office software suite, Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS), as part of its phased technology evolution to a distributed, service-oriented architecture (SOA). Version 8 offers superior performance, a wide variety of deployment options, unmatched flexibility and functionality, and maximum scalability regardless of long-term technology-trends.

Wadhwani Asset Management, a London-based fund manager, will use Charles River’s Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) to support its portfolio management and trading operations. As part of the implementation, Charles River will build an interface with Trader Portfolio system, a portfolio accounting solution, to provide a front-to- back-office solution.

Russell Investment Group has implemented the Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) in its Tacoma, Wash., headquarters and London office. The firm will use the portfolio management and modeling, order management and electronic trading, compliance monitoring and posttrade communications modules of the system to support its increasingly multi-manager fund business.

The rumour about Bear Stearns seeking to acquire HotSpot FXI may have run its course – everyone’s heard it; nothing’s happened. But that hasn’t stopped the big brokerage firm in its ambitions for the foreign exchange marketplace. Bear Stearns this month teamed up with trade order management supplier Charles River Development to offer what the two claim is the first direct FIX-based OMS-to-counterparty link for foreign exchange trading (the validity of which claim may depend on how one defines ‘OMS’, ‘direct’ and ‘first’, of course). The brokerage will stream its spot, swap and forwards rates through the Charles River Investment Management System (IMS), and allow client institutions to route orders back electronically to Bear Stearns for execution.

READ THE REST

Generation Investment Management has implemented Charles River Development’s Investment Management System in a rapid, three-week install. London- and Washington, D.C.-based Generation employs a long-only global equity strategy that includes foreign exchange, forwards and futures. The fund manager has implemented all three components of Charles River IMS: Charles River Trader for order management, Charles River Manager for portfolio management and Charles River compliance for real-time compliance monitoring.

Charles River Development cited adoption of its Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) as it announced a 27% increase in revenues for 2004, its fourth consecutive year of double-digit revenue and net-income growth. The company said 36 new clients adopted Charles River IMS in 2004, bringing the client roster to 145 organizations.

BNY Brokerage Inc. has linked its DEx (Direct Execution Services) trading platform with the Charles River Development’s Investment Management System (Charles River IMS), providing joint clients with electronic direct access to all markets. The FIX integration will allow Charles River clients to direct order flow from the Charles River IMS desktops through BNY Brokerage’s DEx platform, with access to BNY’s SonicPort front-end to work orders directly into ECNs, Nasdaq’s order-routing systems and the New York Stock Exchange, as well as other exchanges. SonicPort’s services – acquired through BNY’s acquisition last year of Sonic Financial Technologies – include a variety of order types, such as pegging and discretion; a proprietary smart order-routing algorithm; web-based trade data reporting; built-in risk management tools; a FIX API connection; and a dedicated and professional trade support unit. In addition, BNY Brokerage’s proprietary algorithms are available through SonicPort, as well as directly through Charles River IMS.

Internationale Kapitalanlagesellschaft (INKA) has signed up for Charles River Development’s Investment Management System to handle equity and fixed-income order management. A German Master KAG, INKA handles compliance checks and regulatory reporting on behalf of investment advisor clients. The firm will use Charles River IMS as a universal translation interface for handling trade orders in a variety of formats, including spreadsheets, text files and faxes.

World Asset Management has opted for Charles River Development’s Charles River IMS order and portfolio management system in support of its $15 billion of equity and fixed-income assets. World Asset Management, a unit of Munder Capital Management, specializes in quantitative investment management techniques. According to Todd B. Johnson, CEO of Michigan-based World Asset Management, “Our index strategies investment process seeks to minimize total transaction costs, maintain a fully invested status and minimize tracking deviations. In most situations, full replication is the best approach, and for many years we have relied on a custom list trading solution to support our continual product rebalancing efforts. As our business continues to grow and our portfolios expand we recognize the need for a more scalable, proven investment management system.” Johnson cited Charles River IMS’s programme trading, electronic execution and compliance rules library and rule-builder capabilities as factors in World Asset Management’s decision.

Massachusetts-based OMS supplier Charles River Development has teamed up with Nippon Life’s Nissay Information Technology Co. subsidiary to market CRD’s Charles Rivers Investment Management System to insurance and asset management firms in Japan. The agreement, announced last month, formalizes a longstanding relationship between the two companies, and will allow Nissay-IT to represent Charles River in Japan, providing sales, technical support and professional services.