Waters Rankings 2014: Best Reporting System Provider — Eze Software Group

To describe ESG as an entity that was established apparently in double-quick time and which hit the ground running in the wake of ConvergEx Group’s decision to abandon its trading front-end business, trivializes the decisiveness and judiciousness of its buy-side battle plans from its very inception. In something of a coup, ESG, owned by Fort Worth, Texas-based private equity firm TPG Capital, acquired a pair of key front-office tools—the Eze OMS and the RealTick EMS—from the ConvergEx stable in January 2013. Then some four short months later, ESG revealed that it had also snapped up London-based Tradar, a provider of portfolio management and accounting technology, to complete a buy-side-focused technology suite to rival some of the very best names in the business: Charles River Development, Fidessa, Advent Software, and Linedata. And what an acquisition Tradar was for ESG: it has matched its Eze OMS and RealTick EMS siblings by winning a category in this year’s Waters Rankings—the best reporting system provider—even though reporting is one of its least celebrated functions. Now re-branded Tradar PMS, the platform supports scenario analysis, decision support, order management, trade processing, portfolio accounting and reporting, compliance and risk management, performance attribution, and connectivity with a range of third parties. It is, as its name suggests, something of an all-singing, all-dancing portfolio management system, spanning the front, middle, and back offices. And when combined with the firm’s Eze OMS and the RealTick EMS products, it makes for a compelling offering. Two hundred buy-side firms in over 30 countries can attest to that, a number that is set to swell appreciably in the years ahead.