Portware, the leading provider of global, multi-asset trading solutions, today announced that Pennsylvania-based asset manager CBRE Clarion Securities has successfully migrated to Portware's cloud environment.
The custom implementation — for which CBRE recently won the 2012 American Financial Technology Award for "Best Cloud Initiative" — has enabled CBRE to reduce operational overhead and eliminate ongoing support costs, and has already driven a measurable increase in bottom-line performance.
The pressures of today's economy have driven large-scale change, M&A activity, enterprise-wide consolidation and cost-cutting initiatives across the financial services community. In late 2011, CB Richard Ellis Investors, the global investment management segment of commercial real estate services firm CBRE Group, acquired ING Clarion Real Estate Securities, a global real estate investment management business. As part of the deal, CBRE needed to determine the smartest way to marry the two firms' infrastructures. CBRE had historically deployed Portware Enterprise in its internal data center, relying on the system to automate its traders' complex workflows.
"We weighed a number of options, but our decision ultimately came down to the benefits of outsourcing to the Portware cloud environment for the support and high availability benefits, without having to compromise on the advanced trading technology and customization we were accustomed to with our legacy Portware Enterprise platform," said Bob McManus, Head of Information Technology at CBRE Clarion Securities. "We also needed to support our traders in Europe and Asia, and outsourcing the system proved more economical than trying to add internal staff to cover our 24-by-6 operations."
Portware Enterprise provides access to the widest selection of broker algorithmic strategies and global trading destinations, including all exchanges, ECNs, MTFs and crossing networks. Hosted on Thomson Reuters Elektron platform, Portware's cloud is a fully managed, globally accessible trading solution that offers the same performance, feature set and flexibility of a locally deployed Portware system. It is fully customizable and includes pre-integrated market data from Thomson Reuters.
Portware first launched its cloud offering in June 2011, and has since made its full suite of trading solutions available via the cloud. Though firms can still deploy Portware locally if they choose, CBRE joins an expanding roster of existing and new clients alike that are attracted to the scalability, security and reduced operation overhead of Portware's cloud model.
"We are honored that CBRE chose to reaffirm its confidence in Portware by migrating to our cloud solution, and we will continue to work closely with all of our clients to help them meet the challenges of today's dynamic marketplace," said Alfred Eskandar, CEO of Portware. "Our cloud solution has been a big factor in the growth we achieved this year, and we expect that momentum to continue into 2013 and beyond."