Case studies

Thames River Capital

Background
Traditional and alternative investment manager Thames River Capital was formed in 1998 by a group of senior investment professionals with a common goal: the creation of a performance-focused, absolute return-orientated, integrated fund management business. Today it has US$11.5 billion under management including a number of single and multi-manager funds and employs 152 staff.

With the expansion of Thames River’s business, particularly in recent years, it became evident that the company needed to run a shadow accounting system that would provide centralised reporting and trade capture to help ensure operational efficiency.

Challenge
Since 2001, Thames River had been successfully using Tradar’s Portfolio™ product for real-time portfolio reporting. By automating key operational middle and back office tasks, it allowed users to focus on their core skills – maximising fund performance.

However, increasingly sophisticated business requirements motivated the firm to consider upgrading from the access-based product to Insight that would better support their growth ambitions.

Tradar had been constantly driving forward the development of its core technology and this had evolved into a new product, Tradar Insight™, which would meet Thames River’s new requirements, and be able to support its future growth. Capitalising on the core functionality of Tradar Portfolio, Insight added workflow tools minimising manual operations to increase efficiency and allow the team to focus on exceptions. Thames River was also keen to take advantage of the increased customisation possible in the reports run with Insight.

Ali Samiei, Senior Business Analyst at Thames River, said: “Our longstanding relationship with Tradar represents something quite special in our industry. Our business has changed a lot over the last decade but when we looked to upgrade our system, there was never any question that we would look elsewhere. Although the Portfolio product had met our needs in the past, we were keen to implement Insight to take advantage of the latest functionality.”

Solution
The decision was taken by Tradar and Thames River to opt for a phased implementation of Insight. This way it was possible to retain all the crucial elements and functionality of Portfolio as Thames River migrated to Insight.

Kevin Welsh, Senior Account Manager at Tradar, describes how his team ensured a smooth transition to Insight: “Whenever a new product is introduced, it’s vital that legacy functionality is still available to all users that need it. We recognise the importance of ensuring that everyone can continue their jobs without any disruption - client’s business can be seriously affected by a hiatus in service. Business as normal – is fundamental to our way of thinking and key to a successful upgrade. Welsh continues: “We have been working with Thames River for a long time, know their business well and understand the challenges they face. Our delivery team worked alongside Thames River and together we have been able to ensure that the seamless transition to Insight had no effect on any other business-critical system. I think it is fair to say that we have risen to the challenges they’ve set us.”

Ali Samiei from Thames River concurs: “We were aware of the complications in the upgrade from a very old version of Portfolio to Insight, so needed the support and guidance of the Tradar consultants throughout the upgrade cycle. The flexible attitude of the Tradar consultants was a strong feature of the process. Considering the complications, the upgrade process was a positive experience. We have a number of different points of contact throughout the organisation, both on the business and the technology side, which has helped maintain open and direct communications.”

Benefits
Ali Samiei sums up: “In Insight we have a single environment in which users can manage their needs from trade bookings to integration with other third-party vendors. But it’s not just ease of use: it has generated savings for us in terms of time and resource too. For example, if an analyst needs to run a daily fund valuation, a template can be set up for the report, enabling it to be easily shared across the business. The report can even be scheduled to run at a certain time automatically, taking a lot of the manual processes out of the equation.

This is a positive step forward for Thames River, and we look forward to realising more benefits of the system when the roll-out is complete later this year.”