Woori Absolute Partners is financially backed by Woori Investment & Securities, a leading listed securities firms in Korea. Woori Absolute Partners was established in Singapore in March 2008 and launched two Cayman Islands-based hedge funds in July 2008: Woori Absolute Asia Multi-Strategy Fund, and Woori Absolute Global Opportunity Fund. According to CIO and managing partner James Jung-Beck Kim: "Our choice of investment strategies reflected what we regarded as appropriate and prudent for new funds operating in challenging and volatile market conditions. Our multi-strategy fund focuses on Asian markets and utilizes relative value/ arbitrage, equity long/short, and volatility strategies. The second fund employs a global, macro-driven strategy."

Woori's choice of system infrastructure also reflected current market conditions. "There was never any question of operating without a robust portfolio and risk management solution in place," said Kim. "And because we trade in a wide range of instruments-equities, futures, listed options, OTC options, swaps, FX spot/forwards, fixed-income and CDs-we needed broad cross-asset support in addition to the ability to handle the multiple investment strategies we employ. Given the level of complexity of our portfolios, reliable risk management has been a critical element in our ability to preserve our client's capital and to post positive returns during volatile market conditions last year."

According to Kim, "The system selection process was actually easy, because from the very start we absolutely required a system that would allow us to trade in volatility, and real-time performance goes hand-in-hand with that need. Equally important for our new asset management business was cost-efficiency and that's what Imagine's ASP-based Derivatives.com delivers. The system's inherent scalability and rapid deployment attributes, and lack of internal IT support requirements, were readily apparent."

Kim added, "On a day-to-day basis, perhaps the greatest advantages of Derivatives.com lie in its tight integration of functions and the fact that it is a system that can help our business expand. It's comforting to know that its extensive capabilities are there for us as we grow. As a matter of fact, we're planning to take advantage of the system's connectivity tools to integrate it with FIX-based execution platforms of other broker/dealers."

Yvonne Dahl, Director of Sales and Marketing at Imagine, said: "Woori Absolute Partners is a perfect example of how companies are using smart technology choices to establish new businesses and lay the groundwork for future success. We look forward to supporting their business growth plans in the Asian market."