Imagine now supports 23 professionals including portfolio managers located in Henderson's London headquarters plus its Singapore office.

With nearly £60 billion in assets under management and fund products spanning equities, fixed income, derivatives, and other asset classes, Henderson sought a sophisticated portfolio management solution that combined high flexibility with real-time performance, says David Elms, Head of Multi-Strategy Equities.

"Our funds span the risk spectrum from enhanced index to absolute return hedge funds and employ a variety of instruments and a wide range of strategies, including equity long-short, event driven and relative value. Imagine has the flexibility and depth of functionality necessary to provide efficient, real-time P&L and exposure tracking."

Derivative.com's integration capabilities were key to achieving project success, according to Dave Thomas, Henderson's Investment Systems Programme Manager in charge of managing the Imagine deployment.

"We knew the system had the capability to eliminate the need for a good number of legacy spreadsheets," Thomas said. "But what enabled us to realize Imagine's potential was its ability to link to and share data easily with our third-party order management system and our own in-house proprietary solutions. Imagine's API-based integration and data access tools made possible a seamless implementation with our existing software environment and business processes."

Thomas added: "Another important benefit pertains to the task of managing financial data. Part of Imagine's ASP offering is centralized data management. This means their data staff handles the burden of maintaining the information required for our day-to-day operations—like real-time pricing, yield curves, corporate actions, security masters, etc. This frees us to redirect resources formerly tasked with this responsibility to other business needs."

"It's been a genuinely pleasurable and rewarding experience working with such knowledgeable and professional investors at Henderson," says Yvonne Dahl, Director of Sales and Marketing at Imagine. "We're eager to expand our relationship further and support the growth of such a respected asset management firm."