Blogs

Markit announced today that they have agreed to acquire Cadis, the enterprise data management (EDM) solutions provider.  Very interesting and significant grab by Markit as they continue their recent string of acquisitions, having previously acquired Wall Street on Demand, QSG, LogicScope, QuIC and Data Explorers, in recent years.  Markit reportedly intends to allow Cadis to run as a standalone business unit. 

BNP Paribas recently conducted a survey on asset managers' appetite for distributing Ucits funds in Asia.  While there are challenges and continued barriers to entry to making Asia a major Ucits market, the poll showed that many firms were bullish on their current and future use of fund structures. From the study:

With two out of three pension plans currently employing some form of Liability Driven Investment strategy (LDI) per Pension a& Investments, it's natural for many to ask the question "what's next in institutional investment management approaches?" One firm is touting Institution Driven Investing (IDI) that takes a black-and-white view of the needs and potential losses using an in-depth assessment

It's no revelation that most buy-side firms are struggling to keep up with the sheer volume of data that their firm consumes, creates, and distributes (see our most recent thought leadership piece on enterprise data management for more). But with all of the talk about Big Data in the market, the more pressing issue in my mind is if buy-side organizations are properly motivated/aligned to take advantage of that data. 

Operations strategy. Enterprise Data Management strategy.

Here's an article on the inner workings of the SEC that provides significant insight into their past, present, and future. The majority of the perspective is based on the Galleon Group insider trading investigation but it also provides some good insight into the challenges they face.

This is the third and final post on taking a managed data approach to FATCA transaction withholding tax reporting.  Previous items in this short series have addressed approaches to handling Party data and Instrument data for FATCA reporting. This piece covers an approach to handling transaction data in that context

Citisoft was featured in this article in Ignites (sub req'd) on data management and the buy-side's desire to understand and reduce total cost of data ownership.  The piece covers Citisoft's recent whitepaper on pragmatic approaches to Enterprise Data Management.  Our own Ben Keeler was looked to for comment on a number of data-related fronts including:

Buy and Hold. 

Be opportunistic, but prudent, in making decisions.

Evaluate all of your options and be ready to strike when the time is right.

Diversify.

Citisoft will once again lead discussions and present innovative solutions to the buy-side's most pressing operational and technology-related issues at this year's Osney Media-sponsored New York conferences on May 16th, 2012.  Osney's annual conference events in New York are great opportunities for COOs, CIOs, and CTOs to network and engage with the industries leading minds.