RMB MULTIMANAGERS TO USE “HIP” FUNDS OF HEDGE
FUNDS PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT SYSTEM FROM YOUDEVISE
NEW YORK & LONDON, June 27, 2006 – youDevise
Limited, a leading provider of on-demand applications for
financial markets, today announced that RMB MultiManagers has
decided to use the Hedge Fund Information Provider (the HIP)
as the primary portfolio management platform for its funds of
hedge funds business.
London-based RMB MultiManagers, which has some US $2.3
billion under management, is part of the FirstRand Group, one
of the largest listed financial service companies in South
Africa. RMB MultiManagers will use the HIP to replace an
in-house system based on linked spreadsheets.
youDevise also reported that RMB is sponsoring the
development of a new Leveraged Portfolios Module for the HIP.
The module will enable funds of hedge funds to track
performance, interest, and other key components specifically
related to such portfolios.
“We are delighted to have RMB as another major user
and sponsor of the HIP,” said Owain McNeill, Business
Manager of Alternative Investments at youDevise. “RMB
has a well-known reputation for forward-thinking and
innovation, having established many of the products and
services in the specialized area of multi-management and fund
of hedge funds investment. Our partnership is helping to
pioneer a whole shift in the funds of hedge funds industry,
from informal spreadsheets to formal, systematized
practices.”
“We were pleased to discover the HIP,” said
Robert Rhodes, Chief Operations Officer of RMB MultiManagers.
“We had spent considerable effort searching for a
portfolio management system for our funds of hedge funds. The
HIP gives us new power to stay on top of all the information
related to our positions, in a way that is not possible using
spreadsheets.”
In early May, Key Asset Management of London, another
pioneer in the funds of hedge funds business, with $1.2
billion under management, became youDevise’s inaugural
client for the HIP. In 1990, Key launched a multi-strategy
fund of hedge fund which has generated positive returns every
year for the last 16 years
About the HIP
The HIP is the first portfolio management system for
solving critical fund of hedge fund management, risk,
compliance and cost issues, particularly those resulting from
over-reliance on error-prone spreadsheets. The HIP also
introduces Straight Through Processing (STP) methods to the
funds of hedge funds industry. Known for its use in stock
transactions, STP enables funds of hedge funds and their
administrators, as well as the hedge funds in which they
invest, to exchange data electronically, reducing reliance on
error-prone phone calls, faxes, emails, and multiple
spreadsheet entries.
Major capabilities of the HIP include Portfolio
Management, for tracking and evaluating investments in
underlying funds; Shadow Accounting for monitoring,
reconciling and forecasting portfolio cash,
payables/receivables, and FX balances; Liquidity, for
determining how much cash is redeemable from hedge funds over
time; and FX Hedging, calculating exposure, hedging needs and
determining gains/losses on existing hedges. The HIP also
provides compliance with investment guidelines, eliminates
the need for multiple data entry, and enables automatic
electronic feeds from external third-party administration and
in-house systems.
The HIP is securely accessed using a standard Internet
browser on an on-demand basis, and supports funds of hedge
funds of all sizes and complexities. The web-hosted format
allows customers to initiate its use in days, with full
migration in less than a month’s time, and provides
exceptional security. Annual fees are a fraction of the cost
of developing in-house systems. The underlying technology is
the same as that employed by youDevise to build the
Repository & Distribution Center (RDC) for Citigroup,
Credit Suisse, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein and Merrill
Lynch. The RDC is an industry utility that enables the secure
exchange of trade ideas between brokerage firms and their
money manager and hedge fund clients.
Contacts:
Owain McNeill, Business Manager of Alternative
Investments, youDevise Limited, London
+44-20-7826-4319
owain.mcneill@youdevise.com
Jeff McKenzie, Public Relations, Anreder & Company,
New York City
+1-212-532-3232
jeff.mckenzie@anreder.com
Christine Chen, Marketing Manager, RMB MultiManagers
Limited
+44-20-7939-1767
christine.chen@rmbmultimanagers.com
About RMB
MultiManagers
RMB MultiManagers (www.rmbmultimanagers.com)
provides specialist investment management services -- both
traditional and alternative strategies -- to institutional
clients. RMB MultiManagers is part of the FirstRand Group.
The FirstRand Group was created in 1998 through the merger of
the financial services interests of Anglo American
Corporation and Rand Merchant Bank (RMB). The Group provides
retail banking services, merchant banking, asset management
and property management as well as providing life insurance
and pensions fund services. The FirstRand Group is one of the
largest quoted companies in South Africa, with a market cap
of US $11.5 billion and assets under management and
administration of US $92.2 billion as of 30 June 2005.
About youDevise
Limited
youDevise Limited (www.youDevise.com),
based in London, provides on-demand applications for
financial markets. The company’s leading applications
provide portfolio management for liquid and illiquid assets.
They include the Trade Idea Monitor (the TIM), for the
high-speed communication of equity trade ideas and portfolio
ideas between institutional brokers and their money manager
and hedge fund clients, and the Hedge Fund Information
Provider (the HIP), the first commercially available
portfolio management system for funds of hedge funds. All
youDevise’ applications leverage its proprietary
Information Distribution Server (IDS), which facilitates the
exchange of data between different market participants.