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TT International Selects LandMark Front End
London-based investment management firm TT International has chosen LongViewGroup's LandMark trade order management system. Dick Simpson, head of IT at TTInternational, explains that as the firm has been expanding the number of fundsmanaged and staff, compliance rules have become more complex and TT Internationalneeded something to formalize and enforce the process. TT International expects to go live with the system at the end of the first quarter of 2000, after installinga new portfolio management and accounting system provided by Financial ModelsCorp.
"The LandMark system is replacing spreadsheets, paper and crossing your fingers interms of compliance rules," says Simpson, noting that they looked at "the usualcontenders" including Merrin Financial, Idee by Decalog and SS&C Technologies'Antares. Simpson adds that the firm also looked at what Portia was offering, butthe product couldn't necessarily be separated from the back-office piece. "A lotof the other firms de-selected themselves, for instance the way we wanted to domodeling couldn't be supported in Merrin, so that was very obvious early on,"explains Simpson.
But Simpson says the decision to go with LandMark hinged on the fact that itoffered a pre-integrated compliance feature, a rebalancing piece and "the way itwas sold as a service." He adds that the experiences of LandMark's reference siteswere also a deciding factor.
"We were very encouraged by the positive stories of live users who have found thesystem quite easy to implement without a huge amount of LongView staff involved,not hundred of thousands of dollars in consultants," says Simpson. LandMark's easeof installation and minimal on-site work was also important for TT Internationalalong with the electronic trading and FIX functionalities.
TT International spent three months selecting the LandMark system, and wasencouraged by the increasing number of sales of LongView in the United Kingdom.The contract for TT International is $10,000 per month for 10 users says Simpson. TT International manages over $4.5 billion in funds for 26 clients in Europe andthe U.S.