Grosvenor Street Capital is a global equities long/short hedge fund founded earlier this year by Paul Warren and partners, a team of well known and very experienced investment managers, based in London.

"There is no doubt that good performance is key for hedge fund success. However, it is widely recognised that many start-ups fail because they have not implemented a reliable, integrated IT solution that is designed to support their business," comments Paul Warren, Managing Director of Grosvenor Street Capital. "We were very clear that we would do a thorough job of identifying the right IT infrastructure to support our business before going to market."

Grosvenor Street Capital officially launched their hedge fund on 1st December, 2005. In the months prior to the launch, they created a precise set of business requirements in order to be clear about their demands they would place on a suitable IT solution. Their criteria for the ideal solution included:

• A fully integrated front, middle and back office system covering a full range of instruments including Asian Stocks, Pan European and US Future, Options and currencies.
• A system that would enable their traders to record executed trades with their brokers and monitor their total exposure on a single portfolio
• Automated communication and reconciliation
• ability to manage and monitor the performance of their investments
• Automatic and independent calculation of the Fund's Net Asset Value (NAV) for the benefit of both their portfolio managers and investors
• suite of risk management tools
• VAR (value at risk) calculation, beta and trading level forecasts

In addition, as a FSA regulated company, Grosvenor Street Capital is required to adhere to stringent compliance requirements, for example, capital requirement monitoring, supervising and logging trader activity and reporting. The ideal solution needed to incorporate these requirements.

They also manage incoming and outgoing funds from investors, and the system needed to enable them to issue and monitor new shares, record details of each client and produce regular monthly performance reports as well as the standard Balance Sheet and P&L statement that comply with international accounting principles.

Adds, Paul Warren "It is important that our team is able to focus on providing a high quality service to our clients, as our skills and expertise are in the business of managing a top performing hedge fund. We had to ensure that we invested in the right technology platform that enabled us to support our business today and into the future. We short-listed 4 companies before selecting Financial Tradeware for their depth of functionality, reliability and performance and importantly their ability to understand our business needs."

Alberto Fontana, Managing Director, Financial Tradeware comments "Our team has worked closely with Paul and his managers to ensure their requirements were met. Naturally, as with any hedge fund, there is an element of customisation required and we are very pleased that the H-FUND system was up and running in time for their launch earlier this month. We are currently working in the implementing of new ad-hoc functionalities requested by the client, and we'll continue to do so, maintaining a very close long term relationship. FIX protocols order routing and Swift connectivity are in the agenda.

Separately, Financial Tradeware today announced their status as one of only six SWIFT accredited Member Concentrators and the availability of the EGP/FT Concentrator Service, which it administers on behalf of its sister company, Européenne de Gestion Privée of France.

Small to medium sized organisations may have limited message volumes but the costs associated with supporting interfaces and communication channels for the transacting of business are increasing. By utilising the SWIFT Member/Concentrator model they are able to outsource SWIFT administration, interfaces and connectivity to SWIFTNet and the transformation of transactions as SWIFT messages between themselves and their counterparties to a third party such as the EGP/FT Concentrator Services and have access to a reliable and secure service which is affordable.

Key Benefits for users of the EGP/FT Concentrator Service include:

• Low-cost outsourced managed window to SWIFTNet
• Assisted SWIFT ordering, set-up and outsourced billing
• Tangible reductions on total ownership costs for interfaces and connectivity
• Security following SWIFTNet PKI standards
• Reliability and Availability 24/7
• Resilience with established disaster recovery sites
• Scalability tailored to changing automated needs
• Full Support provided by Financial Tradeware with its partners

In addition, a combination of standard SWIFTNet features and methods implemented at the EGP/FT Concentrator level, ensure that participants' data is both highly secure and totally segregated.

Alberto Fontana, Managing Director, Financial Tradeware comments "We are delighted to bring all the advantages that larger SWIFT members enjoy to the small and medium sized players in the market through the new EGP/FT Concentrator service. It is another way of demonstrating the value of that our company brings to the market, and particularly as we are uniquely placed to offer this affordable SWIFT connectivity and messaging service to our clients."