BST Awards 2021: Best buy-side performance measurement and attribution product—SS&C Technologies

OVERVIEW

SS&C Sylvan combines multi-asset performance book of record support with data management functionality to ensure high-quality results, an attribution engine supporting standard and user-defined methodologies, and flexible reporting with customizable dashboards. 

Typical user-firms: Sylvan is best suited for mid- to large-size multi-asset institutional and wealth management firms. 

The company added 12 new clients in the past year, including clients in the Middle East. It added/expanded clients using Sylvan as a global solution to meet different calculation and reporting needs for various regions; moved over 70% of clients to version 7, while increasing the number of reporting-only users by 15%; and added functionality to meet private equity reporting needs.

WHAT’S NEW  

Over the last 12 months, SS&C Technologies has added ex-ante risk to Sylvan through integration of SS&C’s Algorithmics microservices. Index creation was modified to allow simplified blends and rollups from constituent level, while an attribution validation rules builder was added for more configurable exceptions building. Sylvan now has more than 150 clients globally with most new ones choosing SS&C’s cloud-hosted delivery model. Sylvan has enjoyed significant traction in the Middle East, driven by local (internal) deployments, which seems to be the preference in the region. There has also been significant interest in Sylvan’s private equity reporting capabilities, specifically around reporting internal return rates, private equity multiples, and after-tax performance capabilities, including after-tax benchmark calculations.

WHAT’S TO COME  

Sylvan has been rebuilt using a fully web-based architecture and can be deployed locally/internally, hosted, or as a service. SS&C expects continued growth globally, especially across Europe, where investment managers are looking for a sophisticated platform that can be configured to their investment needs. User-definable attribution (UDA) has proven useful for global companies that require different calculations according to regions, while the firm has been in talks with benchmark providers to offer benchmark data as part of the solution/service, without the need for additional contracts.

WHY THEY WON

Performance and attribution are two sides of the same coin that buy-side firms fixate on, given how crucial they both are to retaining mandates/allocations and driving new ones. Sylvan joined the SS&C stable in 2005 with the acquisition of FMC and, as evidenced by its continued growth across new markets (the Middle East) and new functionality (ex-ante risk, user-defined configuration and private equity support), it continues to be the benchmark against which all other performance and attribution platforms are measured.