Buy-Side Technology Awards: Best Implementation at a Buy-Side Firm─SimCorp

Although SimCorp Dimension is designed ideally to be implemented as a single, integrated investment management platform, supporting just about every buy-side-focused business activity from the front to the back office, discrete modules can also be implemented on a standalone basis, a delivery model that has helped land SimCorp the Best Implementation at a Buy-Side Firm category in this year's awards.

London-based Marathon Asset Management, a long-only investment manager founded in 1986, with approximately $45 billion under management, consisting of mostly institutional capital─although it does run three long-short equity hedge funds─required a new fund accounting system, as its incumbent platform was limiting the firm's operational efficiency and growth. Marathon was looking for a system to support its technical and functional needs that would provide it with a single view of its data and allow it to rationalize a number of existing IT applications.

The project started in February 2011 with a go-live date initially planned for mid-January 2012. A certain amount of scope change─a factor consistent with many long-term IT projects─meant revising that date to the end of January 2012, a deadline met by the SimCorp-Marathon project team, as was the commensurately adjusted budget.

"The team itself was a combination of Marathon personnel, SimCorp consultants and an outside project manager from London-based buy-side consultancy, Pentagon," says Nick Hughes, Marathon Asset Management's COO. "The technology underpinning the old systems was very tired. The new system brings additional functionality, especially in terms of fund accounting, and has enabled us to rationalize a number of legacy systems including our trade confirmation and settlement system. We've also been able to migrate our hedge funds onto Dimension-the implementation has allowed us to consolidate everything onto a single accounting platform."