New York (HedgeCo.net) – Over the past two years, Merlin has published several white papers that are designed to highlight and help managers imple- ment industry best practices, from shoring up their business model to identifying their target investors based on the development stage of their fund.
In continuing with this theme, Merlin’s latest white paper discusses the importance of business process automation within an asset management firm at all stages of development and how these organizations can measure their current processes versus investor expectations.
Managers, investors and due diligence teams all analyze and measure the business risk and process maturity of a fund. Funds must continually review both their organizational structure as well as the level of automation resident in their systems and procedures.
A hedge fund’s assets, number of strategies, the number and type of its investors, and the amount of people required to run a fund, invariably strain the original processes a fund used when it was a startup. At some point, legacy processes, lack of automation and the lack of delineated roles pose significant operational risk and often impede a fund’s ability to scale and succeed.
“Knowing when to upgrade processes and technology and when to hire additional people is a common challenge for all businesses.”
As funds grow it is imperative that their business processes have the rules, controls and a level of automation that is commensurate with the growth of the fund and the type of investor being serviced. Funds that ignore the natural progression of process maturity will do so at their peril.
About Merlin Securities
Merlin is a leading prime brokerage services and technology provider, offering integrated solutions to the alternative investment industry. The firm serves more than 500 single- and multi-primed managers, providing them with a broad suite of solutions including dynamic performance attribution analytics and reporting, seamless multi-custody services, capital development, 24-hour international trading, securities lending experts and institutional brokerage. With more than 100 employees, the firm has offices in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, San Diego and Toronto. Merlin utilizes the custodial and clearing operations of J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Northern Trust and National Bank of Canada. Merlin is a member of FINRA and SIPC. For more information, please visit www.merlinsecurities.com.
