The awards nominations for the 15th Annual Mutual Fund Industry Awards have been revealed. A full slate of nominations and details about the March event are all available via the Fund Action Web site. The following are in the category of Best Post-Trade Technology Implementation:
O’Shaughnessy Asset Management, total back-office outsourcing—O’Shaughnessy Asset Management faced a potential hurdle in the summer of 2007 when it spun off from Bear Stearns Asset Management to start operating as an independent. The staff was familiar with Mellon Financial due to a legacy relationship through Bear Stearns, and, eventually chose BNY Mellon Asset Servicing, a unit of The Bank Of New York Mellon. While the functionality is somewhat traditional, collaboration between BNY Mellon and O’Shaughnessy in the midst of a major merger between the two custodians and O’Shaughnessy’s spin-off is a significant feat. With the agreement, O’Shaughnessy was able to scale up its operations within a matter of months, according to Chris Loveless, president of O’Shaughnessy. The platform coverage includes account administration, transaction processing and portfolio accounting for all the firm’s institutional, wrap and managed accounts.
Russell Investments, performance reporting and measurement— Russell Investments has partnered with Confluence on its performance reporting for its U.S. fund business since 2004. In light of renewed focus on its global business, however, the firm expanded its relationship with the vendor last year to its fund administration function in Toronto, with further plans to offer the function in Sydney and London later this year. The firm implemented Unity Performance and Unity Benchmarks in an effort to advance the goal. The move was an attempt to have a more global view of the entire function, according to Michael Davis, manager of investment operations for Russell. Russell Chose The firm manages more than $231 billion in assets.
Charles Schwab Institutional, trust accounting and reporting—Schwab Institutional, subsidiary of Charles Schwab Corporation, made a decision to outsource its trust accounting and reporting to Innovest Systems in response to requests from its investment advisor clients. The function is more complicated than basic portfolio accounting due to the fact that principal and income must be kept on separate ledgers. Cathy Clauson, v.p. of product marketing for Schwab, said the firm had performed the function, but that increased need moved the firm to send out a request for proposal for an appropriate platform. Innovest worked with Schwab to customize the platform, InnoTrust, for advisors. The outsourcing agreement was announced in January 2007.