Waddell & Reed Live on Charles River Investment Management System
Phase One rollout of integrated platform and services streamlines workflows and FIX trading
Boston, London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo – May 20, 2009 – Charles River Development (Charles River), an award-winning provider of financial software and services to the global investment management community, today announced that Waddell & Reed Investment Management Company and its affiliates, which combined have $47.6 billion in assets under management, are live on the Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) and Charles River’s Application Management solution. Over 60 Waddell & Reed users now benefit from enhanced decision support, streamlined trade order management, and real-time, pre-trade compliance monitoring on a single integrated platform. Waddell & Reed also leverages the broker-neutral Charles River Network and FIX (Financial Information eXchange) Administration for real-time global electronic trading via FIX. Waddell & Reed has seamless access to 50 of its preferred broker-dealer destinations via the network, and plans to increase connectivity to 100 sell-side providers in the near future.
Phase One, delivered on-time and on-budget, is the initial stage of a three-phase project which is part of Waddell & Reed’s initiative to implement a centralized system to streamline workflows and gain significant efficiencies in portfolio management, trading and compliance monitoring. The implementation completes the Phase One rollout of Charles River IMS across Waddell & Reed’s four equity desks, including domestic and international securities, derivatives and foreign exchange (FX). During the next phase, Waddell & Reed will implement Charles River IMS across its money market desk, while Phase Three will focus on its fixed Income operations.
Waddell & Reed is using Charles River’s Application Management outsourced solution, based on clients’ unique needs. Waddell & Reed receives 24x7 application management and support, including alert notification, performance monitoring and tuning and user administration.
“As a fundamental investment management firm, we are continually focused on achieving long-term success,” said Larry Cipolla, Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer for Waddell & Reed Investment Management Company and Ivy Investment Management Company. “Charles River allows our investment professionals to easily trade and monitor any security in real time – with greater confidence. Charles River’s services also provide day-to-day system monitoring, rendering ‘real’ savings over the cost of a full-time internal IT resource.”
The Charles River Network, which is fully integrated with Charles River IMS, directly connects Waddell & Reed’s traders to its sell-side brokers and other global trading venues – allowing them to handle larger trade volumes, gain new FIX capabilities across multiple asset classes and access algorithmic strategies of their choice and new liquidity destinations. Waddell & Reed subscribes to Charles River’s FIX Administration for proactive administration, monitoring and support of FIX software and connectivity.
About Waddell & Reed
Through its subsidiaries, Waddell & Reed provides investment management and financial planning services to clients throughout the United States. Waddell & Reed Investment Management Company serves as investment advisor to the Waddell & Reed Advisors Group of Mutual Funds, Ivy Funds Variable Insurance Portfolios, Inc. and InvestEd Portfolios, while Ivy Investment Management Company serves as investment advisor to the Ivy Funds. Both investment management entities also manage a range of institutional and separate account assets. Waddell & Reed, Inc. serves as principal underwriter and distributor to the Waddell & Reed Advisors Group of Mutual Funds, Ivy Funds Variable Insurance Portfolios, Inc. and InvestEd Portfolios, while Ivy Funds Distributor, Inc. serves as principal underwriter and distributor to the Ivy Funds.
Waddell & Reed Advisors Funds and Ivy Funds are featured prominently in the list of “Best Mutual Fund Families of 2008,” as ranked and published by Barron’s. According to the publication, Waddell & Reed Advisors Funds were the fifth ranked fund family, and Ivy Funds ranked number nine, out of 59 fund families. In addition, Waddell & Reed Advisors Funds were the top ranked fund family, and Ivy Funds number three, out of 53 fund families over the latest 5-year period.
Both the Waddell & Reed Advisors and Ivy Fund families offer a broad fund lineup covering all major asset categories, including international and domestic equity funds, specialty funds, fixed income funds and money market funds.
About Charles River Development
Charles River Development is an award-winning provider of innovative technology systems and services to over 315 investment firms in the institutional, mutual fund, banking, hedge fund, wealth management, insurance and pension industries. The Charles River Investment Management System is a comprehensive front- and middle-office software suite for all asset classes that includes Charles River Manager for portfolio management and modeling; Charles River Trader for order management and electronic trading; Charles River Compliance for real-time pre-trade and end-of-day compliance; and Charles River Post-Trade for the centralized management of trade matching, confirmation, and settlement workflow. The system incorporates global real-time electronic trading via FIX (financial information eXchange) through the Charles River Network, a broker-neutral financial network that is fully integrated with Charles River IMS.
Charles River IMS features a modern, proven, N-Tier service oriented architecture (SOA) that is highly scalable and supports continuous 24x7 operations. Message-based APIs and exposed Web Services facilitate rapid systems integration.
The company also offers implementation, application management services and hosting. Founded in 1984, Charles River maintains headquarters in Boston and primary offices in London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo.
Charles River is the recipient of numerous recent industry awards including: Best Integrated Front-Office Platform and Best Buy-Side Order Management System, Buy-Side Technology Awards 2008, 2007; Best Buy-Side Order Management System, TradeTech 2008, 2007; and FinTech Top 100, American Banker/Financial Insights 2008, 2007.
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