Eugene Grygo, Chief Content Editor, FTF News
One of the reasons that this blog exists is to spotlight items that can quickly hit and then bounce off our radar. Rather than lose them in the flurry of news, I’m going to give them their 140 characters of fame.
Triad Securities Expands
Brokerage Triad Securities announced last month that it had expanded its managed suites for hedge funds.
Specifically, Triad Securities, which has been offering prime brokerage services and infrastructure to hedge funds for more than 20 years, is adding an area of 7,500 square feet expressly to support more hedge fund managers. The firm is in the Trinity Building at 111 Broadway in the Wall Street area of Manhattan. The firm occupies 22,500 square feet of space and “will be introducing custom suites that range from 1,000 to 5,000 square feet, at a rate which will be much more affordable than standard office space,” Triad officials say.
Rent in Manhattan is “up 10 percent in the last 12 months and our startup hedge fund clients have always had difficulty leasing relatively small office space with flexible lease terms,” says Daniel Madison, executive managing director, real estate firm Newmark Grubb Knight Frank, in a prepared statement.
Vista Fund Services to Use Linedata System
Trading systems vendors Linedata, which focuses on investment management and credit industries, let it be known that boutique fund administrator Vista Fund Services Ltd. has selected Linedata Admin Edge to manage its fund administration services in Gibraltar “as demand for its specialist services grows,” say Vista officials.
“We are a specialist administrator offering a range of services,” says Craig Wilson, finance director at Vista, in a prepared statement. The firm serves startup managers that need to launch a new fund to the administration of “larger funds for more established clients.”
Vista officials say they decided to “move away from their in-house system to one designed and supported by investment software specialists, and they were prompted by a growing fund and investor base and the need to adapt to new regulatory regimes, particularly AIFMD.
The selection process included demonstrations of several software solutions, and Linedata Admin Edge was selected for “its scalability, configurability and ability to address a variety of fund types, Wilson says.
“We chose Linedata Admin Edge because we can configure it exactly to meet our needs, and because it offers us the cost-effective scalability we require as our business grows,” Wilson says. “It will help us automate and streamline our processes, producing efficiency gains and further reducing operational risk.”
The Linedata system will used to manage Vista’s “diverse client base with fund strategies covering private equity, real estate, complex derivatives and, of course, more plain vanilla type instruments,” Wilson adds.
In particular, Vista hopes to benefit from the automation of the production of net asset values (NAVs), Wilson says. “Increasingly our clients are looking for more frequent valuations and we believe the efficiencies we will gain through automation are considerable, and will allow us to meet our clients’ expectations with significant time savings — time which we can use to look after our current clients and to on-board new ones,” he says.
ISDA Changes DC Rules
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) announced that the ISDA Credit Derivatives Determinations Committees (DCs) have voted to change the DC rules that determine whether a credit event has occurred in the credit derivatives market.
The changes are part of an effort to further strengthen the process for identifying a credit event, ISDA officials say.
“The changes are primarily aimed at reinforcing controls and procedures by setting globally consistent minimum standards on the internal conduct of DC member firms,” according to ISDA. “This includes explicit requirements for written policies or procedures to be in place at all member firms concerning the identity of DC decision-makers, identification and management of potential conflicts of interest, and record keeping. These requirements complement existing securities laws and anti-manipulation requirements, which DC member firms are already subject to.”
The changes include requirements for written policies or procedures to be in place at member firms that:
- Require the identification and management of any conflicts of interest arising from DC membership and potential profits or losses from trading or holding economic positions in instruments where the price may be affected by a DC decision;
- Set limits on the individuals who can act on the DC firm’s behalf. Those individuals cannot work within departments in the firm that carry out core activities in various business lines such as credit trading, hedging, lending, investing, advisory or similar functions, unless the firm is satisfied that the relevant function is independent of the business;
- Make explicit how any material non-public information received through the DC process should be handled, in accordance with any applicable securities laws;
- Describe the DC member firm’s internal process of deciding how to vote.
“The policies or procedures set to satisfy these requirements must be retained by the firm for at least five years,” according to ISDA, which in its role as Secretary of the DCs, will maintain records of the individuals authorized by DC member firms to participate on their behalf “as well as records of individuals’ attendance on DC calls, for at least five years.”
The changes will be implemented starting in mid-February 2016, ISDA officials say. Additional information regarding the DCs is available on the ISDA Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee website www.isda.org/credit.
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