Thomson signs Middle Eastern investment bank Naeem to Portia

Source: Thomson Financial

Thomson Financial, an operating unit of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC, TSX: TOC) and leading provider of information and technology solutions to the worldwide financial community, today announced that Naeem Holding, one of the fastest growing investment banks in the Middle East, has signed an undertaking to implement Thomson PORTIA, the leading investment accounting system, across three countries in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA) region.

Under the terms of the agreement, Naeem Holding will deploy the newly released version Thomson PORTIA (Version 9.0) in all its current locations in the Middle East which includes Dubai, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The deal represents the first multi-country implementation for Thomson PORTIA in the MENA region.

Following a comprehensive system selection process, Naeem Holding selected Thomson PORTIA as a single platform to support the different regulatory requirements across the Middle East. Flexible integration to third party systems was also a key requirement along with the ability to report in English and Arabic to meet the demands of both clients and local regulators in the Middle East.

Bassam Ganadiely, Chief Operating Officer, Naeem Saudi Arabia commented: "Thomson PORTIA is widely recognized as the leading portfolio accounting solution and our experienced team has successfully worked with previous versions. The deployment of Thomson PORTIA 9.0 across our entire Middle Eastern operation provides a scalable solution that improves efficiency and so enables us to meet our ambitious growth objective. Importantly, it offers flexibility to handle the full range of Islamic products and will enable us to provide a better service to our clients, while ensuring compliance with Shariah and other regulatory requirements across the Middle East and North Africa."

The addition of Naeem Holding continues Thomson Financial's expansion in the Middle East and follows the opening of the regional office in Dubai in 2006. Thomson Financial aims to be a leading supplier of information and technology solutions in the region and has already seen the expansion of the local office with a number of new clients and staff joining in recent months.

Christy Bremner, Managing Director, PORTIA commented: "This new, enhanced version of PORTIA expands our core capabilities and fits perfectly with the growth strategy of Naeem Holding. It also represents many years of continuous investment in PORTIA. We are excited to be working with Naeem Holding on the first multi-country implementation of PORTIA in the Middle East & North Africa and look forward to moving into production."

Thomson PORTIA revolutionizes how clients approach their day-to-day operations by providing an open, flexible and high performing system that is instrumental to ensuring an ideal workflow and streamlined operation. Providing an enterprise-wide solution, Thomson PORTIA allows investment managers, asset managers, hedge funds and insurance companies the powerful tools they need to reliably manage daily transaction activity, seamlessly integrate with other systems, settle trades with ease and generate a wide-range of reports for clients, management and regulators. Thomson PORTIA is the book of records and hub for all portfolio activity used by 300 firms in over 40 countries to manage more than 15 Trillion dollars worth of assets. Thomson PORTIA is the investment professional's go-to choice to manage assets.

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