The Challenge
A fund had extensive processes and custom integrations built within their investment management life cycle. This client needed to start supplying the same services and processes to a 3rd party fund manager. The client wanted to leverage their existing integrations, technologies and processes to support the 3rd party’s workflows. This would allow for one code base, development, and deployment methodology for both the client and the 3rd party; while maintaining an ethical, information, and technical barrier between the hedge fund and the 3rd party. This barrier was necessary in order to prevent exchanges or communication that could lead to conflicts of interest.
Terms
OMS: An acronym for the Order OMS: An acronym for the Order System. This system is used by the Client to build/execute trades and to pass on to Settlement.
SOD: Start of day. Typically referenced for pre-market opening in-house preparation processes.
EOD: End of day. Typically referenced for post-market closing in-house preparation processes.
50B+
AUM
Fund managed 50 Billion in Assets
100+
Impacted Users
Over a 100 users potentially impacted.
0
Down Time
The implementation had no impact on day-to-day operations.
“OmniVista had to analyze all of the features that were available to the current users. This included custom logic, reports, notifications, and scheduled processes. OmniVista then outlined a plan that would allow for the same flows and processes to be utilized across multiple client locations. We put together alongside the client’s full-time personnel to execute the project through the design, testing, training, and implementation phases.”
Senior Manager
The Process
Our client required that the 3rd party would have all of the same functionality and processes in place as their current users while maintaining a barrier between the two organizations. Items included in the split were as follows:
The first task at hand was to identify instances where the client had been referenced either by name or acronym within customizations, reports and databases. Through the use of scripts, propriety tools and other search methods, we identified and documented all references to the client that would need to be configurable to support the new 3rd party integration and use.
A new instance of the investment management environment and systems were created for the 3rd party, including: a new OMS and database instance, Citrix, Reference and Market Data Provider instance, and FIX Server.
Within the OMS, the client had custom tools and processes to streamline their workflows. This included the trading system customization and integration. For example, the client had a custom allocation flow that went into effect when a certain account was used. This flow needed to be mirrored for the 3rd party, but they would need a different fund and subsequently all references to this fund also needed to be changed and configurable.
The client also had many batch processes that needed to be considered. Many of these processes ran stored procedures to load data or to send out emails. All SQL database objects were created with parameters that could be passed in. This allowed the database objects to be the same for all environments. The recipient company name was passed into the stored procedures to distinguish which environment process was being run in.
The client had various scheduled reports and emails initiated through database executions and reporting services. The 3rd party wanted to leverage all the client’s reports. To accommodate this, parameters and conditional logic were added to the processes to control report and email headers, footers, comments and subjects.
For trade settlement, most investment firms integrate with a trade settlement software/system for order matching with a broker. We needed to work with the vendor to setup a new instance of the Broker Trade Matching Services. This consisted of updating configurations within the OMS, setting up users, setting up profiles, and testing the flow.
The final large effort item was setting up the OMS database for the 3rd party. The 3rd party wanted to use as much of the client’s reference and security data, in addition to keep the 3rd party’s historical trades that were in the system. Rather than starting from a new fresh database and adding the required data, we used the existing client’s database and scripted the removal of the client’s proprietary data and addition of new configurations.
The end result was a new OMS environment and integration sharing the same services for ease of support, integration and future development.
The segregated 3rd party system was successfully implemented on time and with little to no impact on the day to day operations of the funds.
Conclusion
OmniVista combined its comprehensive business and technical understanding of trading workflows to deliver a holistic solution to its client. We not only designed for today, but also ensured that the solution was configurable so that we can easily add new 3rd parties in the future.
Built today to meet tomorrow’s needs.
Our team of senior industry consultants successfully delivered a segregated investment management system to the 3rd party with little to no impact on their day to day business operations.
“We simply could not have accomplished such a task without the OmniVista team.”
Client Manager
