Buy-side trading technology provider Charles River Development has made Japanese broker Nomura’s ModelEx suite of execution algorithms for Asia available to users of its Investment Management System (IMS).
The algorithms cover a number of key Asia-Pacific equity markets, including Japan, Hong Kong, Australia, India, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. More than 40 brokers now provide algorithms to buy-side clients via IMS.
“To address the Asia-Pacific region’s market fragmentation, asset managers and institutional investors continue to demand electronic trading tools and strategies,” said Cameron Field, managing director, Asia Pacific, Charles River, in a statement. “We help meet this demand by efficiently routing orders to the most liquid markets, providing integrated access to leading regional and global strategies, such as the ones offered by Nomura’s ModelEx platform.”
“Charles River is instrumental in helping buy-side firms gain fast, flexible and dependable access to ModelEx algorithmic strategies, both across Asia-Pacific and globally,” added Sunny Chung, executive director of electronic trading services at Nomura.
Nomura developed the ModelEx platform from the direct market access and algorithmic capabilities of investment bank Lehman Brothers. Nomura acquired Lehman’s European and Asian operations in September last year after the parent firm, Lehman Brothers Holding, filed for bankruptcy.
Charles River has also signed up a new South African client to IMS. The Public Investment Corporation (PIC), one of the largest investment managers in Africa with around $100 billion in assets under management, will use the system for its fixed income trading and portfolio management. The firm may expand the system to manage equities in the future.
“Like any government agency, we follow a very strict and extensive procurement process,” said Leon Smit, head of fixed income, PIC. “Our clients are public sector entities who have varied investment mandates which have been approved by the Financial Services Board (FSB), so our trading and portfolio management environment is closely controlled. We needed an order and execution management system flexible enough to meet any client demand.”?
Charles River’s South African buy-side client base includes ABSA Capital, Metropolitan Asset Management, Prudential Portfolio Managers, Sanlam Prime Services and STANLIB Asset Management.