NEW PRODUCT | PALADYNE LAUNCHES HOSTED FRONT-TO-BACK TECHNOLOGY SUITE

Ex Cogency head launches ASP suite, Advent partnering

NEW YORK and SAN FRANCISCO – Paladyne Systems, the recently formed hedge fund technology vendor headed up by former Cogency chief executive, Sameer Shalaby, has launched a hosted front-to-back suite of technologies acquired from a multi-strategy New York-based hedge fund, and has also partnered with Advent Software to roll out an ASP version of the Geneva hedge fund accounting system.

The suite comprises Paladyne Portfolio Master, which includes order and portfolio management, real-time P&L, and performance tracking capabilities; Paladyne Portfolio Analytics for transparency and position-level monitoring; Paladyne Security Master, a global repository and distribution engine for listed and private securities; Paladyne Price Master for automated collection and analysis of prices from third-party sources; and Paladyne Client Master for client relationship management.

According to Shalaby, Paladyne's chief executive, the hedge fund had developed the suite of products for internal use at considerable time and expense, and was eager to commoditise it. Having sold the technology, the fund is now a Paladyne client; the vendor also hired the fund's development team.

Paladyne will target primarily mid-tier hedge funds and administrators, Shalaby explains, adding that the firm currently has one manager up and running and has also signed a contract with a fund administrator.

"The best strategy we came up with was to offer these tools in a hosted platform to go after the smaller hedge funds with less than $1 billion under management, and then partner with administrators to enable them to use this technology in their back offices and bundle front-office components into what they're giving their clients as part of their service offering," Shalaby explains. Paladyne also plans to offer install versions of its modules to attract larger-tier fund managers, he says.

Paladyne has also contracted with Advent to market a hosted version of Geneva and integrate the ASP system with other modules on offer. The firm's clients will also have access to Advent's workflow manager module for streamlining integration, reconciliation and reporting functions between Geneva and other third-party applications.

Peter Hess, senior vice-president and general manager for Advent's global accounts business, explains that bringing a hosted version of the accounting system to market on its own would have been more time consuming.

"The Paladyne deal doesn't preclude us from rolling out our own hosted version of Geneva, but if we were to host Geneva it would have taken six to 12 months to roll it out," Hess says. "Paladyne was planning on providing hosted technology to the hedge fund space, and the value proposition of integrating Geneva with their components is potentially a better strategy for us. We not only don't have to deal with running the overhead of that ASP business, but we also get the benefit of all the Paladyne ancillary applications that integrate to make a more attractive solution for hedge funds."

Hess adds that while Advent has significant presence in large- and small-tier hedge fund markets, bundling an ASP version of Geneva with the Paladyne suite should provide new opportunities to expand the vendor's footprint in the mid-sized hedge fund space.