Allen Zimmerman, SimCorp

The move will enable SimCorp to complement its Axioma risk models and portfolio construction capabilities with Yield Book’s fixed income analytics to deliver analytics for securitised debt.  

Yield Book products provide analytical insight into financial products in the fixed income sphere, including government and corporate bonds, US municipal bonds, mortgages and asset-backed securities and derivatives. 

This integration will provide SimCorp clients with improved access to fixed income analytics including risk forecasting, sensitivity analysis, stress testing and factor-based decomposition of risk.  

These capabilities aim to help institutional investors to address risk factors that are specific to this asset class and help them make better investment and risk decisions. 

Read more: Fireside Friday with… Yield Book’s Emily Prince 

“This partnership extends the depth of our fixed income capabilities by leveraging Yield Book’s market-renowned prepayment models and analytics directly within our products to support the most sophisticated fixed income and multi-asset managers,” said Allen Zimmerman, managing director, head of Americas at SimCorp. 

“This is another step toward enabling faster and more informed investment decisions.”  

This latest development builds on SimCorp’s existing collaboration with LSEG Data and Analytics for market and reference data, established in 2024, allowing for improved access to LSEG data across the investment platform SimCorp One. 

“The integration of Yield Book’s best-in-class fixed income analytics with Axioma Risk enables more clients with market-leading data, analytics and risk management tools at their fingertips,” said Emily Prince, group head of analytics at LSEG. 

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Casey Crawford was appointed institutional municipal trader, vice president, at RBC, joining from Citi. New-York based Crawford was previously vice president, municipals trading at Citi having spent a decade with the firm. His previous positions at the bank include: gold international finance analyst, private bank investment analyst and private bank fixed income analyst. Crawford also has experience working at Aon Hewitt and UBS earlier in his career. 

SimCorp appointed Allen Zimmerman as managing director, head of Americas, set to lead SimCorp within the region – including the firm’s analytics business Axioma. His focus will be on defining strategic direction and helping realise SimCorp’s growth aspirations in the Americas. He joined from BlackRock, where he served as a managing director, focusing on business development for the firm’s investment management technology offering since 2015. Zimmerman brings 18 years of experience in financial services, including senior roles with the portfolio analytics and quantitative models businesses at Barclays and Citi. He also has experience in front-office modelling. Based in New York, Zimmerman will report to Oliver Johnson, chief revenue officer, and will focus on furthering growth within the Americas region.    
  
BMO Capital Markets appointed Harj Bagria within its electronic trading division, The TRADE revealed last week. Bagria joined BMO from Credit Suisse, where he spent nearly five years. Most recently, Bagria held an EMEA equity trading position, based in London. Elsewhere in his tenure at Credit Suisse, Bagria held APAC equity trading and electronic sales trading positions, based in Hong Kong. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, Bagria spent two and a half years at Deutsche Bank, most recently as head of electronic execution sales for APAC. This followed an eight-year stint at Citi, where he held electronic sales trading roles in both London and Hong Kong. Elsewhere in his career, Bagria held an analyst position at Lehman Brothers. 
 
Wematch.live appointed David Culshaw as global head of fixed income; a newly created role which reflects the fintech’s expansion into the fixed income space. Culshaw joined Wematch.live from Brevan Howard spinout, SigTech, where he served as global head of business development. Elsewhere, Culshaw held a leadership role at CME Group’s BrokerTec, where he held responsibility for the commercial development of the firm’s dealer-to-client RFQ repo platform across EMEA and North America. Culshaw has a background working with both the buy- and sell-side across a range of financial products including interest rate derivatives, securities financing and cash bonds.  

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The partnership will extend past standard digital asset broker connectivity, enabling mutual clients to manage digital assets holistically within SimCorp’s front-to-back investment management platform.

The solution will provide joint clients with one single source for traditional, alternative and digital asset classes.

“One of SimCorp’s core value propositions has always been a single, integrated system for all asset classes. We believe that digital assets are coming of age, and it is time to integrate them properly to provide a holistic view across all asset classes on a single platform,” said Niels Jacobsen, principal product manager at SimCorp.

“Together, SimCorp and Alloy will be uniquely positioned to offer exactly that to our shared clients: one integrated platform to manage truly all asset classes.”

Alloy’s clients consist of a range of firms including family offices, hedge funds and listed asset managers.

The firm simplifies the process of managing and implementing digital asset investment strategies, with a front-to-back investment platform combining a suite of proprietary tools with regulatory compliant digital asset operations, analysis and monitoring capabilities.

“It’s only more recently that we’ve observed the convergence of mature infrastructure and holistic, asset management-centric, approaches that render digital assets both relevant, and attractive to the kind of institutional investment managers that SimCorp primarily serves,” said Paul Faecks, chief executive and co-founder of Alloy.

“With this partnership, Alloy enables SimCorp’s clients to access the digital asset markets and manage this asset class in a consistent, safe, robust, and scalable way, similar to their traditional assets.”

Earlier this year, SimCorp introduced a new cloud-native performance attribution solution as part of the inaugural offering from its new Investment Analytics Platform.

The inaugural solution was developed to meet increasing demand for accurate performance analytics and offers investors the ability to calculate performance attribution in real-time.

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The solution was developed to meet increasing demand for accurate performance analytics and offers investors the ability to calculate performance attribution in real-time.

“In today’s complex and fast-paced investment landscape, real-time performance attribution can provide transparency and clarity regarding the drivers of financial returns, particularly in portfolio construction and active risk management,” said Lars Ole Hansen, global product manager at SimCorp.

“Our new investment analytics service enables users to perform advanced investment performance analytics on the fly, with calculations delivered in just a few seconds.”

SimCorp’s front-to-back investment management platform offers performance measurement and attribution across all asset classes, including alternatives.

The performance attribution solution is transaction-based and helps investment managers examine the effectiveness of their investment strategy, whether it’s active, passive, or smart-beta.

“By leveraging the data stored within the SimCorp investment management platform and encompassing all asset classes, we secure the highest levels of accuracy and transparency,” added Ole Hansen.

“This design ensures that all assets and transactions are in the same system, meaning that users won’t have to manually pull data from multiple sources to determine the underlying exposures.”

The service also provides portfolio managers and client relationship flexible views of attribution factors in their investment, improving decision-making processes and communication with their investors.

SimCorp stated that it will further expand its offerings under the Investment Analytics Platform by introducing solutions related to ESG attribution and risk attribution as the next set of services.

“Releasing this initial service on the cloud-based Investment Analytics Platform underscores SimCorp’s ongoing commitment to cloud transformation and reinforces our position as a technology-enabled service provider,” said Hugues Chabanis, vice preside of investments at SimCorp.

Earlier this year, SimCorp partnered with FlexTrade Systems to bolster its order management system (OMS) capabilities.

The partnership aimed to meet increasing demand from trading teams for improved integration and collaborative workflows between their OMS and EMS solutions.

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Deutsche Börse entered into a binding agreement to acquire SimCorp in an all-cash public takeover in April, with the acquisition at the time expected to complete in Q3 2023.

SimCorp has been valued at $4.3 billion as part of the transaction. The minimum acceptance level is 50% plus one share of all SimCorp shares. SimCorp’s board of directors have previously unanimously recommended to shareholders that they accept the offer.

Once completed, Deutsche Börse has confirmed it will seek to have SimCorp shares removed from official listing on Nasdaq Copenhagen.

The company also plans to combine its existing data and analytics subsidiaries Qontigo and ISS. These are set to be grouped under a newly created investment management solutions segment.
 
Read more – SimCorp expands Dimension platform with Qontigo partnership

At the time the deal was announced, Theodor Weimer, chief executive of Deutsche Börse, said: “SimCorp A/S is a perfect fit strategically and culturally. It is one of the leading global investment management software providers, serving the largest asset managers and asset owners worldwide.”

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The offer period for the acquisition expires on 19 September, with the transaction expected to be completed by 29 September at the latest. 

Deutsche Börse entered into a binding agreement to acquire SimCorp in an all-cash public takeover back in April. At the time the acquisition was expected to complete in Q3 2023. 

Read more – SimCorp expands Dimension platform with Qontigo partnership

The acquisition has a minimum acceptance level of 50% plus one share of all SimCorp shares, with SimCorp’s board of directors having unanimously recommended to shareholders that they accept the offer.

Once completed, Deutsche Börse has confirmed it will combine its existing data and analytics subsidiaries Qontigo and ISS. These are set to be grouped under a newly created investment management solutions segment.

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To complete the deal, Deutsche Börse will launch an all-cash voluntary recommended public takeover offer for all SimCorp shares except for its treasury shares.

SimCorp has been valued at 3.9 billion euros ($4.3 billion) as part of the transaction that is expected to be completed by the third quarter of this year, subject to regulatory approvals and a minimum acceptance level of 50% plus one share of all SimCorp shares.

In a statement, the pair confirmed that SimCorp’s board of directors has already unanimously decided that it intends to recommend shareholders to accept the offer when published.

Once completed, Deutsche Börse has confirmed it will combine its existing data and analytics subsidiaries Qontigo and ISS, grouping them under a newly created investment management solutions segment.

The pair have an extensive existing partnership. In September 2021, SimCorp partnered with Qontigo to offer clients a portfolio optimisation, and risk management and modelling service via its buy-side front-to-back investment management system, SimCorp Dimension.

Read more – SimCorp expands Dimension platform with Qontigo partnership

“SimCorp A/S is a perfect fit strategically and culturally. It is one of the leading global investment management software providers, serving the largest asset managers and asset owners worldwide,” said Theodor Weimer, chief executive officer at Deutsche Börse in a statement.

“Through our existing partnership we have come to know and appreciate the management of SimCorp A/S and the strategic transformation they have initiated, backed by a highly competent team of skilled employees. In addition to the SimCorp A/S transaction, we have decided to merge ISS and Qontigo. Both transactions will bring long-term growth, sizeable and tangible synergies, and a significant increase of our recurring revenues.”

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The partnership aims to meet growing demand from trading teams for seamless integration and collaborative workflows between their OMS and EMS solutions, alongside helping to optimise trading activities and helping to meet best execution obligations.

“Our aim at SimCorp is to provide the buy-side with plug-and-play access to execution management systems such as FlexTrade’s FlexTRADER EMS,” said Zoe Sheehan, vice president, investments at SimCorp, speaking exclusively to The TRADE.

“We believe that scaling our ecosystem is important for future growth and our ability to provide investors with superior choices that meets their needs.” 

As part of the integration, FlexTrade will join SimCorp’s Open Platform programme, which is designed to offer its clients access to fintech solutions across the investment value chain.

In addition, the two firms will work collaboratively to deliver improved connectivity between SimCorp’s OMS, Order Manager, and FlexTrade’s multi-asset EMS, FlexTRADER, to offer various efficiencies including reduced time to market and a smoother onboarding process.

“At SimCorp, we are dedicated to providing investment management software solutions that cater to the unique needs of buy-side participants worldwide,” added Sheehan..

“Our market-leading enterprise solution, combined with access to our strategic partners, enables our clients to focus on value-adding tasks in a cost-efficient manner with maximum effectiveness, regardless of their location.”

Mutual clients of the two firms will leverage aligned future roadmaps, including the ability to request new features from FlexTrade’s domain experts. This will result in a responsive user experience between OMS and EMS solutions when trading across multiple asset classes, including equities, fixed-income, FX, options and futures.

“We are pleased to strengthen our relationship with SimCorp and join its Open Platform initiative,” said Andy Mahoney, managing director, EMEA at FlexTrade Systems.

“SimCorp and FlexTrade have a strong track record of providing innovative solutions to the buy-side. We are excited to collaborate to deliver a seamless, cross-asset technology interaction between EMS and OMS solutions, which will help our mutual clients optimise their trading activities.”

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The services will be available on SimCorp’s buy-side front-to-back investment management system, SimCorp Dimension, originally launched in August last year on Microsoft Azure as part of its ongoing cloud strategy.

Through the partnership, Qontigo’s Axioma Equity Fact Risk Models, Axioma Portfolio Optimiser and Axioma Risk, Qontigo’s cloud-native solution, can now be accessed directly within SimCorp’s platform and through standardised APIs.

“The approach we have taken is to offer optionality over championing one provider in a given space. We’ve done this, for the simple reason that it delivers the flexibility clients need to drive competitive edge and long-term sustainable growth, with SimCorp as the backbone,” said Anders Kirkeby, head of open innovation, SimCorp.

“Effectively it cuts out arduous research, compliance and maintenance of multiple vendor contracts. We believe vendors who can take on such operational responsibility, and deliver one touch point for all client needs, will ultimately create the most success for their clients and deliver a strong ecosystem.”

Deutsche Börse established Qontigo in September last year, focused on financial intelligence in investment management, following the closure of its acquisition of analytics firm Axioma.

“This partnership is a natural fit for Qontigo, as we share a philosophy of open ecosystem innovation. Providing the end-client with flexibility and choice is critical to both entities,” said Brian Rosenberg, chief revenue officer at Qontigo.

The news follows JP Morgan integrating its custody data onto the SimCorp’s Dimension platform in May earlier this year. Under the terms of the agreement, the investment bank will share its post-trade data with mutual users through SimCorp’s platform.

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Christian Kromann will become CEO from 2 September, as Holse remains at the company as a member of the executive management board for the rest of this year and then as a senior advisor until the second quarter in 2022.

Holse has led SimCorp as CEO since 2012. He was previously corporate vice president at Microsoft overseeing the firm’s activities in Western Europe and a former senior vice president at Oracle Corporation.

“In his nine-year tenure, we have seen tremendous growth and significant value creation for our shareholders, and Klaus has been instrumental for initiating the ongoing transformation,” Peter Schütze, chairman of the board of directors at SimCorp, commented.

Kronmann joined SimCorp as COO in August 2019 in a new position within the company. He had previously held senior positions at trading technology vendors including FIS and Sungard, and was most recently CEO of software provider TIA Technology.

“The Board has followed Christian’s performance as COO for the past two years and we are pleased to have a strong and competent internal successor to take over the leadership of the company after Klaus Holse,” Schütze added.

“Christian is an accomplished and respected leader with an impressive background from our sector, and his dedication to execution and strong client focus is what is needed to drive SimCorp’s success in the future.”

Last month, SimCorp expanded its partnership with Swiss exchange operator SIX to bring global reference, pricing and regulatory data to the buy-side using its investment management platform, SimCorp Dimension.

The integration extends an existing partnership between the pair who originally collaborated in 2019 to integrate SIX’s Sanctioned Securities Monitoring Service into SimCorp’s compliance manager module.

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