Page 15 – Meradia

Multi-Asset Class Investing: Part 1 – Forces Behind a Trend

Meradia has observed a strong uptick in activity around Multi-Asset Class (MAC) investment products and strategies. We see managers across the globe expanding current MAC offerings and introducing new ones; consequently, generating demand for new support around analytic methodologies, data, and technology.

This series explores our view of the MAC phenomenon in depth, from origins to solutions. In this first of three installments, we look at market and industry trends that seem to be driving the evolution of MAC towards more sophisticated strategies and methods.

by Mark R. David, CFA, Director of Performance, Risk & Analytics

Investment Accounting Systems: Keeping up with Ever-evolving Insurance Statutory Requirements

Investment accounting is an ever-changing process, especially for insurance companies and publicly traded insurers. Statutory accounting regulations (STAT) from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and accounting rules from the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) for generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) have been rapidly and broadly changing reporting requirements in response to riskier investment types, new investment categorizations, and changes in accounting rules. Flexibility within investment accounting systems is more critical than ever.

Rules are written or modified annually for investment accounting, which puts pressure on insurance companies to quickly implement new procedures and support systems to remain compliant. Enlisting Meradia’s expertise in evaluating your current state, defining your target state, vendor selection, conversion, and implementation can help you successfully navigate through this dynamic environment.

End-to-End Process Evaluation for Service Provider

BACKGROUND A leading global provider of integrated solutions for institutional asset managers engaged Meradia to document operating procedures. As a service vendor to the industry this firm was asked by existing clients, sales prospects and regulatory bodies to provide comprehensive documentation to substantiate business practices as part of due diligence exercises. Existing documentation was fragmented, […]

Operational Assessment for Multi-Family Office

BACKGROUND Meradia was retained by a family office to assess their investment application stack, organizational design and operational processes. Like many investment management firms, the company had grown over time and had come to realize it was time to take a holistic review of their organically grown patchwork of systems and overall operating model that […]

Accounting RFP for Multi-Family Office

BACKGROUND Meradia was retained by a multi-family office to assess their investment application stack, organizational design and operational processes. Like many investment management firms, the company had grown over time and their system stack had become patchworked, resulting in an operating model that had become overly manual and inefficient. Our initial assessment determined that most […]

Security Master Scalability for Institutional and Wealth

BACKGROUND A leading global provider of integrated solutions for institutional asset managers used Markit EDM to provision the security master supporting their multi-client investment management platform. The organization wanted to adopt an approach that would extend the capabilities to also satisfy their wealth management and banking security master needs. The client had growing demands for […]

BlackRock Aladdin Front Office Implementation Project Manager

BACKGROUND A global asset manager had multiple vendor and proprietary trading systems to support equity and fixed income trading. The firm struggled to get a timely, accurate and holistic view of trading activity and decided to standardize by implementing a single instance of BlackRock’s Aladdin globally. Functional scope for the full Aladdin suite included trading […]

Performance and Attribution Capabilities Audit for a Global Asset Servicing Company

BACKGROUND Meradia’s client, a global asset servicing company, acquired a European asset servicing firm, which included a middle-office software vendor. The software vendor served both the newly acquired European asset servicing business and had independent clients. Meradia was engaged to identify and evaluate ways our client could leverage this newly acquired software asset. Options included: […]

Asset Manager Client Reporting Requirements and Vendor Selection

BACKGROUND An investment management firm with $100 billion AUM wanted to ensure their end-state client reporting platform would support their evolving business. They retained Meradia to lead a strategic initiative to evaluate the current client reporting environment, prioritize and document future state reporting requirements. Following this, Meradia led the client through a selection process and […]

Pricing Data Process Modernization for Investment Advisory Firm

BACKGROUND Meradia’s client, an independently-owned investment advisory firm with over $50 billion AUM, needed to modernize their ability to manage market data, especially pricing data. The firm’s existing data architecture consisted of Excel-based processes to manage, download, review and maintain important market data assets underlying daily positions and portfolio valuations. With continuing growth, the firm […]