Before the magazine featuring in-depth reports on the winners of the recent competition goes online, we’re providing a sample vendor profile of SS&C Technologies.
(Editor’s Note: We are putting the finishing touches on the FTF Focus magazine edition that features in-depth coverage of the FTF News Technology Innovation Awards. The annual, special edition, which will be online soon, will feature two industry veterans — Philippe Chambadal, the president of SmartStream voted FinTech Person of the Year, and Bill Stone, chairman and CEO of SS&C Technologies chosen to receive the Editor’s Choice for Operational Excellence award — who showed in 2015 that they have no intention of slowing down. In fact, each of the companies they represent won additional awards for achievements last year. We are also spotlighting a variety of vendors that broke ground in financial technology in 2015 to advance post-trade operations. To provide readers with a sample of the vendor Q&A interviews, we are publishing today the Q&A for SS&C Technologies, which won Best Client Reporting Solution — SS&C Advent — Black Diamond, and the aforementioned Editor’s Choice Award. This Q&A detailing a transformative year for SS&C will not be in the magazine for space reasons but we thought we’d share it now.)
Q: What are the basics for your company?
A: Main headquarters: Windsor, CT
Top executives: Bill Stone, chairman and CEO; Norm Boulanger, president and chief operating officer; Patrick Pedonti, chief financial officer; and Paul Igoe, general counsel.
Corporate mission: SS&C’s mission is to provide global financial services organizations the greatest depth and breadth of investment accounting and business process expertise, software technology, and software-enabled, services.
Number of customers: 10,000-plus.
Q: Why do you think your company has been a success?
A: We have become particularly entrenched in the hedge fund space over the last 10-plus years and our acquisitions of fund administrator GlobeOp Financial Services in 2012 and Citi Alternative Investor Services this year were major milestones, making us the second-largest fund administrator worldwide.
With the acquisition of Advent in 2015, used by hundreds of top hedge funds, we cemented our position as one of the most comprehensive providers of technology and services to the alternatives space.
Advent has also increased our capabilities for serving traditional asset managers and took us into the advisory market for the first time — a space we view as very exciting and where we look forward to growing our presence.
Q: What is distinctive about the company’s offerings recognized by the 2016 FTF News Technology Innovation Awards?
Bill Stone, CEO, SS&C Technologies
A: Last year marked a major year of innovation for Black Diamond because the platform has evolved from a pioneering cloud-based portfolio management and reporting technology solution to a wealth management platform that offers aggregation, customizable reporting, and rebalancing, combined with fully outsourced daily reconciliation and data management.
In [February 2015], Advent announced the launch of the Black Diamond Integration Network to deliver a broad set of integrations with workflows across multiple advisor technology companies, deepening the breadth of the platform.
Q: What was your company’s biggest achievement in 2015?
A: 2015 was a transformative year for SS&C.
Most notably, we acquired Advent Software Inc., our largest acquisition to date. Advent brings a talented workforce, over 4,200 loyal customers, and world-class products including Geneva, Black Diamond, APX [Advent Portfolio Exchange], Axys, and Moxy.
In addition to Advent, we acquired Varden Technologies and Primatics Financial.
Varden brings SS&C a cloud-based enterprise reporting solution with an intuitive user interface.
Primatics Financial enhances SS&C’s loan servicing offering with EVOLV, a sophisticated loan risk and finance solution.
We also developed and released Precision LM, a comprehensive commercial loan origination and servicing system including performance and tax optimization modules.
Our real-time mobility technology allows our clients to now verify cash movements, as well as review other operational details, from their phones and tablets. Additionally, during 2015 we developed a new family wealth platform.
R&D is also used for continuous automation of manual processes, making our services more accurate and efficient.
Q: What are your goals for 2016 and beyond?
A: Today, we are focused on integrating newly acquired solutions and leveraging complementary functionality to bring new enhancements and value-adds to our customers.
For example, with Advent’s Geneva solution, which primarily serves alternative asset managers, we are working to leverage SS&C’s capabilities in data analytics and regulatory compliance to provide longtime Geneva clients with new, more holistic enhancements. This will enable them to quickly experience one of the many benefits that bringing Advent and SS&C together will provide over the longer term.
With Primatics Financial, we are leveraging its capabilities with our leading loan origination and servicing platform, Precision LM.
Going forward, we expect to continue pursuing smart acquisitions and developing innovative technology that grows our share of the market and our portfolio of comprehensive offerings.
Q: What more would you like to say about your company?
A: After 30 years of business, numerous acquisitions and significant growth, SS&C remains a founder-led company, with CEO and Chairman Bill Stone at the helm.
This combination of depth of experience and the laser-focused vision of a founder continues to guide SS&C to keep ahead of the competition and deliver solutions that truly help investment managers succeed.
Click Here to Enjoy the Special 2016 Awards Issue of FTF Focus — Read & Download Today!
Need a Reprint?
