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The Challenge of Limited Visibility Leadership is difficult even in ideal conditions. Now imagine stepping in as a new Chief Investment Officer (CIO) at a pension fund or endowment, tasked with overseeing all asset classes, only to discover that visibility into total fund exposures is fragmented, delayed, or buried across disparate systems. CIOs and investment
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Applying Machine Learning Techniques in Investment Performance: Uncovering Heuristics to Decipher Data Quality Checks
PREFACE Jose Michaelraj CIPM, CAIA, a Senior Manager at Meradia, specializes in optimizing performance operations and technology for asset managers, asset owners, and custodians. With deep expertise in modern data management techniques, Jose has reorganized performance processes, assessed attribution platforms, and developed a pattern recognizing validation tool. Jose frequently writes about bridging business needs with
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Vendor Spotlight: SimCorp
INTRODUCTION Welcome to the next installment of our Vendor Spotlight Series, featuring SimCorp. At Meradia, where we offer you a window into the world of global vendors and their services. In this edition, Lars-Ole Hansen, Senior Director in SimCorp’s Product Management joins Rich Mailhos, Meradia’s Managing Director and Performance Practice Lead, to discuss SimCorp’s new
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Reclaimable Withholding Taxes: Investment Performance Challenges
Reclaimable withholding taxes from foreign dividends and income present challenges for asset managers and asset owners. This paper examines operational challenges associated with investment performance calculations, specifically pertaining to a global portfolio with investments in multiple countries. Challenges discussed include jurisdictional nuances, uncertainty of collecting receivables, and delayed reclaims. Additionally, this paper addresses the advantages
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Process Based Attribution: Getting to the Heart of Value Add
INTRODUCTION Our previous papers in the asset owner series dealt with a variety of topics in the performance value chain. The first paper discussed valuation challenges posed by higher allocations to private markets, external asset management, and managing multiple books of record. Our second explored multiple return methodologies to provide meaningful performance returns. In the
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Change Management: Forgotten? Afterthought? Or Strategic Investment for Success?
INTRODUCTION The significance of change management cannot be overstated in today’s evolving business landscape. Do you genuinely value change management? How do you effectively drive change? What strategies do you employ to ensure success? Often, organizations miss the crucial opportunity to integrate change management at the optimal stage of their projects. When the tide of
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Bridging Resource Gaps for Successful Investment Performance Implementations
When clients and vendors share responsibility in system implementations, what is at risk of being overlooked? The delineation of duties between clients and vendors can be ambiguous. Resourcing gaps arise when one party assumes that the other party is responsible for a task. These gaps become apparent only after project teams and stakeholders have experienced
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Balancing Art and Science: Returns & Benchmarking Processing for Asset Owners
In the first paper of our asset owner series, we explored the unique business drivers, valuation methodologies, and considerations for private market and external manager processing. Now, in our second installment, we shift our focus to returns and benchmarks.
Asset owners often invest across a diverse mix of private and public market asset classes. But should the same return methodology be applied to both the asset class and the total fund level? Are there acceptable deviations?
Sophisticated benchmarking capabilities are essential for accurately consolidating returns at the total fund level. The complexities of substitution and benchmark specific overrides present challenges driven by various underlying factors. What are these factors, and how can best practices help overcome these challenges? Read on to discover our perspectives and practical solutions
UAT for Performance Transformations Is Notoriously Difficult. It Doesn’t Need To Be.
User Acceptance Testing (UAT) can throw projects into a frustrating and mind-numbing stall, which is catastrophic to any transformation. The terror of botching a go-live event with insufficient data commonly leads users into a frenzy of checking, double-checking, approving, re-checking, and reapproving. As the process repeats across test cases, progress toward user confidence seems negligible.
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Reap More Value From Data in Operational Transformations
“SURROUNDED BY DATA, BUT STARVED FOR INSIGHTS.” – JAY BAER LEVERAGE CAPABILITIES AVAILABLE IN EMERGING CONVERSION TOOLS TO SUPPORT PLANNING INSIGHTS In the first paper, we said that Performance is Data, sometimes a daunting data challenge. Performance data generation happens in successive layers. Aggregation of holdings creates exposures; changes in market values or exposures create returns; returns lay
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