Majority of Buy-Side Firms Cite Front-Office Benefits of IBOR, Yet No Immediate Action Plans

95% acknowledge importance of the on-demand access to portfolio calculations across asset classes that an Investment Book of Record (IBOR) delivers.
58% indicate having no plans for a 2014 IBOR initiative

SimCorp, a leading provider of investment management solutions and services for the global financial services industry, today announced results from a survey conducted during a recent webinar entitled “Investment decisions based on incomplete data? Where is your IBOR?” Survey respondents include 136 buy-side executives representing 79 investment management firms.

Key Poll Findings:

• IBOR is becoming increasingly relevant in the front-office; more than 60% of respondents indicate that portfolio managers and traders are the biggest beneficiaries within the organization.
   
• 94% believe it is important for the C-level to understand the relevance of an IBOR for an intraday view into a firm’s trading and portfolio management operations.
   
• 95% agree that it is important to have on-demand access to portfolio calculations across asset classes, yet only 46% of respondents say they are able to generate intraday position snapshots.
   
• 63% admit that the front-, middle- and back-office do not work off a common set of real-time position data.
   
• 58% of participants indicate that they have no plans for a 2014 IBOR initiative.

Todd Healy, head of investment operations at BMO Global Asset Management, was an early adopter of an IBOR initiative and joined the webinar to highlight some of the benefits seen by his firm. “The greatest business advantage for BMO is that the IBOR provides the most up-to-date position data to drive better portfolio and trading decisions. At all times, the IBOR contains full, accurate information on which our portfolio managers can make investment decisions and traders can trade. The risk of wrong decision-making based on incorrect data is simply too high to continue being ignored,” he explained.

Thomas Phipps, Principal at Cutter Associates, also participated in the webinar and presented Cutter’s thought leadership regarding the business requirements for an IBOR. He pointed out that portfolio managers who do not have an effective IBOR solution must start the day collecting or verifying portfolio position data because they do not trust what is provided by the back office. According to Phipps, “Without an IBOR solution, the front-office must either work off partial or out-of-date data or maintain IBOR figures manually. This can be time consuming, lead to portfolios not being ready to trade when markets open, and is a very inefficient use of highly skilled and expensive alpha producers’ time.”

David Kubersky, Managing Director of SimCorp North America, stated, “While near term resourcing strains and competing demands often inhibit visionary action and implementation, the ROI over the long term is very compelling for those firms that coalesce stakeholders to rise to the challenge. For example, a recent study has shown that enhanced investment management capabilities can yield productivity and profit gains that translate into anywhere between 51-242 basis points of retained alpha. This illustrates that an IBOR is indeed more than the latest industry buzzword.”

For more information about establishing an IBOR, click here.

Enquiries regarding this announcement should be addressed to:
Susan Peter, SimCorp North America, +1 917 546 4654

Media Contacts:
Kevin Maher/Miranda Garrison, Cognito, ­+1 646 395 6300, simcorp@cognitomedia.com

About BMO Global Asset Management
BMO Global Asset Management is a global investment manager with more than $132 billion in assets under management, including discretionary and non-discretionary assets under management, and more than $162 billion in assets under administration as of October 31, 2013.

Our two multi-disciplined teams are based in Toronto and Chicago/Milwaukee, and our network of world-class boutique managers is strategically located across the globe. They include Monegy, Inc., Pyrford International Ltd., Lloyd George Management and Taplin, Canida & Habacht, LLC. BMO Global Asset Management delivers service excellence from offices throughout North America, and in London, Abu Dhabi, Mumbai, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Sydney. Our approach has led us to be recognized by Pension & Investments as one of the world’s largest 100 asset managers based on combined assets under management as of December 31, 2012.

We are a part of BMO Financial Group (NYSE: BMO), a fully diversified financial services organization with $537 billion CND total assets and more than 45,500 employees as of October 31, 2013.

About SimCorp
Since 1971, SimCorp has been providing investment and portfolio management software and services to the world’s leading investment managers, asset managers, fund managers, fund administrators, pension funds, insurance funds, and wealth managers. SimCorp’s world-class software provides global financial organizations with the tools they need to mitigate risk, reduce cost and enable growth. SimCorp is a global company, regionally covering all of Europe, North America, and Asia Pacific. Listed on the NASDAQ OMX Nordic, SimCorp is dedicated to supporting the global investment management industry, its clients and its investors. For more information about SimCorp’s products, please visit www.simcorp.com/product.