EzeCastle Follows Its Hedge Fund Clients Across the Pond

In a sign of the rapid globalization of hedge funds, EzeCastle Integration, a provider of outsourced IT services and consulting for more than 450 hedge funds, announced today that it has set up a London operation. "Many of our clients are looking for one provider who can provide consistent service, policies and procedures in all the territories they're located, so they can easily do business across geographies," says Bob Guilbert, managing director. "It's natural for companies that are international to want to consolidate their IT best practices under one roof."First EzeCastle will serve U.S. based clients that have London offices - so far, 10 such customers have signed on. Then it will set about attracting new U.K. clients. "The market is very ripe over there, there are more than 79 hedge funds in the U.K. that have $1 billion or greater under management," Guilbert says.

The services EzeCastle provides in London are similar to its U.S. offerings, including a 24/7 help desk and deployment and procurement of storage area networks, IP networks, servers and voice systems. In the first quarter of 2008, the firm plans to offer disaster recovery for the U.K. hedge funds.