Fidessa Launches Latest Version of Minerva OMS

  • Investment , Management
  • 15.03.2016 09:30 am

Fidessa group plc (LSE: FDSA) today announced the latest version of its Minerva buy-side order management system (OMS). Minerva sits within Fidessa's Investment Management Solutions suite which provides asset managers with comprehensive, end-to-end workflow for investment decision, compliance, orders & trading and post-trade across all asset classes.

At the same time, the company announced it is strengthening its buy-side sales function in North America to meet the evolving demands of the marketplace as well as its rapidly expanding product set. In addition, Fidessa has opened a new, expanded North American headquarters for its buy-side business in Boston.

Buy-side dealing desks worldwide are relentlessly pursuing the twin goals of best execution and maximum efficiency. Firms that can take advantage of new markets and leverage new venues while demonstrating tight operational controls bring the greatest value to the investor.

Minerva allows firms to improve efficiency by implementing a global, consistent, integrated workflow across all asset classes and regions, and at the same time delivers powerful functionality that allows them to maximize returns while enforcing controls. This latest release enhances Minerva's position as a market-leading OMS and includes: enhanced order handling capabilities across futures, options and swaps; comprehensive support for Latin American interest rate futures; more sophisticated fixed income trading functionality; support for market specific practices in Korea and Japan; identification of all crossing opportunities across dealing desks; and the use of new technologies to deliver significant performance gains.

Fidessa has re-structured and strengthened its buy-side sales function in North America to meet the evolving demands of the marketplace as well as those of its growing product set. As the buy-side product suite extends into new areas of the trading workflow, as well as into new managed services and the post-trade space, the breadth of experience and skills needed to target these new areas has grown too. As a result, the overall buy-side sales function will now be a part of the larger Fidessa group Americas sales organization led by Chris Valpone, who has been running Sales and Account Management for Fidessa in North America for the last 9 years. As part of this structure, new Account Management and New Business Sales teams have been put in place to address these changing needs, and plans are in place to further expand these teams going forward.

Heading up Account Management in North America is Doug Abere who brings a wealth of experience in looking after and growing business within a blue chip client base. Under Doug, this new team will bring a renewed focus to the buy-side client base and will be actively involved in supporting strategic initiatives and strengthening the firm's existing client relationships while promoting the new feature sets and enhanced functionality that are in the pipeline across the product suite.

Paul Neumaier is heading up the North American New Business Sales team. Paul has a proven track record of managing and winning new business for Fidessa in this region for over 6 years and has over 15 years of experience in selling multi-asset OMSs to both the buy-side and sell-side. Paul's team will leverage his experience, and together they will drive new business growth across the rapidly expanding product set that Fidessa is rolling out for the buy-side marketplace.

Megan Costello, President of Fidessa Buy-side in North America, commented: "We have invested heavily in our entire buy-side product suite in recent years, from our investment decision tools, through our powerful order generation and management solution Minerva, to compliance and post-trade. This latest version of the Minerva OMS delivers new, sophisticated functionality and ensures firms can trade across multiple regions with a centralized book and accommodate the most demanding and sophisticated workflow requirements on a desk-by-desk basis."

"Strengthening our sales function and expanding to a new office in the region clearly demonstrates our continued commitment to the buy-side space. In tandem with our rapidly growing product set, we will continue to meet the evolving needs of our client base as well as grow our share of the buy-side marketplace," concluded Costello.

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