Hedge Fund GBK Upgrades To Shepro's Unix Server In A Bid For More Speed

TECHNOLOGY STRATEGIES

Looking to speed up processing in its back office, hedge fund HBK Investments L.P. is replacing the DOS-based version of its investment accounting system with a Unix upgrade. The firm is moving to a Unix-server-based version of Shepro Braun Systems Inc.'s Total Return portfolio accounting system; the system is accessed via Microsoft Corp.'s Windows NT-based clients. Meanwhile, officials at HBK--which brought Total Return online at the beginning of 1995--have also requested additional functionality from the vendor.

HBK utilizes Total Return to support approximately $500 million in assets under management. According to Kevin O'Neal, an official in HBK's investment management department, the firm's investment approach extends to equity derivative trading, equity arbitrage and fixed-income arbitrage.

HBK selected Total Return in late 1994 to replace Thomson Investment Software's Portia portfolio management and accounting system. The firm launched its Unix upgrade conversion process in the middle of February and brought the system live two weeks thereafter. "I was actually surprised at how smooth it was because I had expected there to be a few more hiccups," says O'Neal.

"As our accounting system, [Total Return] is really the core of our operations," says O'Neal. "We use it for tracking all of our portfolios, many of which are multicurrency. We also run our general ledger from Total Return, so it supports the production of financial statements."

In the time since HBK first deployed Total Return, O'Neal says that the firm has experienced significant growth. "We have grown a lot in the last year and a half. Assets have really grown, but I can't say any more than that," says O'Neal. "Peoplewise, we have grown to 35 from the 20 we had just in September last year."

O'Neal says that the growth in the assets at HBK led to increased demands on the already limited DOS-based system. "The biggest reason [for the Unix upgrade] was speed. The volume of transactions that we have were just overwhelming the DOS system," says O'Neal. "Reports were taking half an hour which [with Unix] now only take a minute, minute and a half."

O'Neal says HBK officials were also looking for a system having an architecture that was more open than the DOS-based Total Return. "The DOS system's architecture is a very closed environment," says O'Neal. "Now, with the Unix platform, we are able to get at the data better and have the promise of getting at it a lot better down the road."

Meanwhile, although O'Neal says that this Unix upgrade has addressed many of the concerns of HBK officials, he says there is room for improvement.

"I would like to see [Total Return] more open. As I mentioned, the promise is there with the Unix, but they are not quite there yet," says O'Neal. "Since we have a lot of programmers here, I'd also like for them to tie directly into the database itself, which they can do now, but only to a limited degree."

O'Neal says HBK has not been bashful about requesting functionality. "The specific area where we would like to see work is to create trader strategy level P&Ls, which we can't do yet," say O'Neal. "We have requested this and it looks like something we are going to work with them to get."

Shepro Braun's system supports 13 people in HBK's front office and 15 people in its back office. The firm has deployed the system on a Sun Microsystems Inc. Sparcstation 20 server linked to mostly Dell Computer Corp. Pentium-based PCs running Windows NT.

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