It was developed by RINA Systems, in cooperation with a successful hedge fund operation to overcome the limitations of other fund administration and performance reporting technologies available. A key concept in the design of HedgeFacts was the integration of the various technologies needed to run an alternative investment business: fund administration, performance reporting and analysis, and risk management.
Built from the ground up, HedgeFacts is fully web-based using the latest Microsoft .NET technologies. The web-based nature of HedgeFacts creates the ability to run a virtual office from anywhere in the world. Moreover, the internet is an ideal medium to both service clients and provide analytics to prospective clients.
In developing HedgeFacts, we conceptualized a technology that would allow alternative investment managers to improve their operations by offering a complete solution for servicing clients, generate marketing analytics and literature, and provide risk management and transparency, all from a seamless and integrated web-based environment.
Our research demonstrated that nearly all of the existing product and service offerings required the assembly of disparate systems, often at great expense, time, and commitment. Some capabilities could be outsourced to service providers (fund administration), while others required the licensing of technology (risk management, portfolio analysis, portfolio design and asset allocation, and performance reporting). Yet the various software systems used to run an alternative investments business typically required the use of the same underlying return and position data.
We began an ambitious effort to create a fund administration and portfolio analytics suite that would have the following attributes:
| 1. | Requires minimal integration of various functionality including client reporting, statistical analysis, risk management, and performance attribution |
| 2. | Is easily customized to the client’s environment, business processes, and data capabilities |
| 3. | Makes use of the latest technologies (fully web-based using Microsoft .NET) for servicing clients and in-house administration |
| 4. | Provides all of the portfolio analytics that firms typically purchased in addition to fund administration services and software, such as performance reporting, statistical analysis, what-if portfolio design, risk management and simulation, position transparency and performance attribution |
| 5. | Allows the embedding of portfolio analytics and reporting into a website, making it easier for the manager to keep investors informed, while at the same time building investment business brand |
| 6. | Reduces costs by decreasing the number of personnel needed to process back office data while simultaneously increasing the capacity and breadth of data and services offered to the client. |