Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services Calls for Industry Standards in Reporting

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services today called on the hedge fund industry to leverage technology and adopt clearer industry standards in data management to help close a gap in transparency expectations between fund managers and investors.

The recommendation follows a key finding from a 2014 survey of hedge fund managers and investors fielded by Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services, a leading provider of administration and middle-office services for hedge funds. The survey revealed that 55 percent of investors favor more transparency from their hedge fund managers while 98 percent of managers think investors are satisfied with the level of transparency as currently provided.

In a white paper, Overcoming the Challenge of Transparency, Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services suggests that better transparency capabilities, among other benefits, can be achieved through adopting clearer industry standards for data communications that pertain to four areas:

• Aggregation: Capturing data from multiple sources, centralizing it and providing a presentation and data-delivery element.
• Normalization: Translating and formatting the data from each source consistently and enriching it by sourcing missing values.
• Verification: Validating the accuracy of received data through reconciliations, overriding valuations where needed, running data-quality checks and resolving issues or discrepancies.
• Integration: Assimilating systems, business processes and data-delivery formats to ensure easy delivery of aggregated data to external systems and counterparties.

While solutions exist to handle aggregation, normalization and verification to varying degrees, the key to transparency lies in integration, or the ability to simultaneously support a single "golden" data set while preserving the flexibility to feed that data into multiple other systems, maintains Northern Trust. In addition, previous attempts at standardization have fallen short of some of the industry's key needs in terms of flexibility, granularity and data quality.

"The forces driving the industry today – investor needs, an increasingly competitive marketplace, more complex financial markets and regulatory scrutiny – are creating real needs for integrated data solutions," said Peter Sanchez, head of Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services. "The technology exists today to allow investors to receive more transparency while managers protect their intellectual property, but a lack of market consistency around data makes those solutions quite expensive. We believe that better data standards, established through collaboration by industry leaders, can help more firms adopt these practices, which in turn can bring costs down and make these types of solutions accessible to the entire industry."

Sanchez also considers transparency a critical competitive factor as investors seek out managers who provide the level of transparency they require. "Adopting an industry-wide integrated data model will help managers bridge the transparency gap with investors," Sanchez said. "An industry-wide data model will also better position the industry to meet regulatory demands, facilitate data quality, and generate new and compelling value propositions for investors by making their services a more integrated part of investor portfolios."

The full white paper is available now and can be downloaded at northerntrust.com/hedgefundsurvey.

About Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services

Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services (NTHFS) is a leading provider of administration and middle office services for hedge funds and institutional investors with complex portfolios. NTHFS' capabilities change the relationship between managers and their administrator though a full-service, front-to-back operating model that can support any asset or strategy with unparalleled flexibility in data management and reporting. Our Omnium™ technology platform offers clients unsurpassed access through real-time transparency, interactive utilities, and virtually unlimited strategy and attribution tagging capabilities. Our services are supplemented by an expert professional staff that understands the industry and our clients and backed by the scale, stability, and financial strength of one of the world's most respected financial institutions. Our mission is to deliver Operational Alpha™, positioning clients for success by giving them the ability to focus on executing their strategies.

About Northern Trust

Northern Trust Corporation NTRS is a leading provider of wealth management, asset servicing, asset management and banking to corporations, institutions, affluent families and individuals. Founded in Chicago in 1889, Northern Trust has offices in the United States in 19 states and Washington, D.C., and 20 international locations in Canada, Europe, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. As of March 31, 2015, Northern Trust had assets under custody of US$6.1 trillion, and assets under management of US$960.1 billion. For 125 years, Northern Trust has earned distinction as an industry leader for exceptional service, financial expertise, integrity and innovation. Visit northerntrust.com or follow us on Twitter @NorthernTrust.

Northern Trust Corporation, Head Office: 50 South La Salle Street, Chicago, Illinois 60603 U.S.A., incorporated with limited liability in the U.S. Global legal and regulatory information can be found at http://www.northerntrust.com/disclosures.