Singapore, Collateral & SS&C’s Latest Acquisition: A Week in Review

• SS&C Acquires Wells Fargo's Fund Admin Business

The sports world often shows just how wrong acquisitions can go (Paul Pogba, anyone?) and the same is true in business. While mistakes are often made when it comes to purchasing new assets or merging firms together, SS&C seems to have a golden touch.

The software giant completed its merger with Advent last year after paying a whopping $2.7 billion, and has since shown no slowing down in its quest to improve across its business lines through the dark art of acquisition.

Last week, a deal for Wells Fargo's fund administration business was announced, further bolstering the vendor's capabilities for the middle-office, operations and cash/collateral management services aimed at alternative investment managers. This follows the August acquisition of Citi's alternative investor services business, including hedge fund services and private equity fund services, for $425 million.

I've spoken to many people in the industry who don't believe it's possible for one firm to cater to all the varying needs of the capital markets, and I agree with them, but it does look like SS&C is doing its best to disprove this opinion. My money is on more acquisitions in the future from this firm.

• Lombard Risk Rolls Out AgileCollateral to Tackle Buy-Side Collateral Management

Another vendor fortifying its collateral management offering was London-based Lombard Risk, which launched its AgileCollateral solution last week.

Essentially a stripped-down, lightweight version of its existing Colline collateral management product, the new solution is squarely aimed at providing buy-side participants with a more agile way to comply with upcoming changes to collateral management regulations.

To my mind, this approach is strategically sound; by introducing the product to market six months before the regulation hits, Lombard Risk is giving its clients (and prospective clients) plenty of time to get onboarded and ready for March next year. Too often, the industry complains about tight timeframes when it comes to regulation but there is still an onus on firms to comply. The regulators aren't going to do it for them.

There's also the element of adapting an existing system to make it fit for purpose. Lombard Risk CEO Alastair Brown told me that the firm believed that the Colline product wasn't intuitive enough to handle the current needs of the buy side; so instead of developing something new, the firm has simply tweaked an existing solution. Seems pretty savvy to me.

• Bloomberg Entity Exchange Lands First Singapore Buy-Side Client

Bloomberg picked up its first Singapore-based buy-side firm for the Entity Exchange last week, as Gordian Capital signed on to the know-your-customer (KYC) solution.

Entity Exchange launched in May and counts around 140 buy-side players as clients, but the data giant only started talking to Asian firms in July. While there are a number of Hong Kong-based firms using the platform, to break into the Singapore market is a big win for Bloomberg in terms of this specific area of technology.

My view is that Singapore is going out outpace Hong Kong to become the Asian tech hub in the near future, so building that client base now is going to set Bloomberg in good stead as KYC mandates grow increasingly more important.