The white paper is based on feedback from 50 fund services providers and hedge funds from around the world. Hedge funds, administrators, custodians, law firms, fund platforms and consultants in the US, Europe and Asia Pacific region provided their thoughts on the purchase and deployment of portfolio management and reporting technology during Q1 2019.

Among the key findings were:

Hedge funds are having to spend more on technology then previously and are being prompted to do so by the demands of both regulators and investors.
Hedge fund managers are relying heavily on other fund managers and investors for advice on the systems they choose, as well as service providers.
Service providers polled have clearly stated that there is a gap in advice for hedge funds in IT – they continue to see funds coming onto the market that are ill-prepared for key data management and reporting tasks.
Many funds are still relying on spreadsheets to achieve critical tasks: this is translating into a low level of confidence in their portfolio management systems, impinging on their ability to manage multi-prime relationships.

“Smaller hedge funds are faced with a challenge when they launch – the lack of access to the technology they might have used in previous roles,” commented Dave Shastri, Head of Strategy at Truss Edge. “Constrained budgets mean that many more sophisticated systems are out of reach for the smaller fund manager. Firms are turning to spread sheets because this is at least something they are familiar with, but frequently spread sheets will not be up to the necessary reporting and data analytics tasks.”

Truss Edge has been operating in the hedge fund market for 20 years. Its flagship Safari technology platform has been configured specifically to meet the requirements of fund managers, especially hedge funds and ETFs. Safari is used by a broad range of hedge funds, supporting strategies from long/short equity all the way through to exotic weather derivatives markets.

Jay Duffy, CEO of Truss Edge, commented: “Technology spending decisions are not taken lightly by hedge funds: new technology can represent a cost in terms of both money and manpower. They want technology that can help them to create leaner and more efficient operations that will allow them to focus on their core competency, namely managing money.”

Truss Edge supports hedge funds with their day to day trading and reconciliation requirements. Its Safari technology platform gives fund managers the tools they need to meet the demanding requirements of investors and regulators without having to expand their headcount. Truss Edge brings with it the skills and experience of its international hedge fund operations team who work closely with clients on a day to day basis to ensure their requirements are satisfied.