WEDGE Capital Management to Use APL-MSP, CheckFree's Multiple Strategy Portfolio Solution
Monday June 7, 9:01 am ET
-- First institutional investment manager to utilize APL-MSP functionality --
ATLANTA and JERSEY CITY, N.J., June 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CheckFree Investment Services, a division of CheckFree Corporation (Nasdaq: CKFR - News), today announced that Charlotte, NC-based WEDGE Capital Management is the first institutional investment manager to license CheckFree APL(SM) MSP, CheckFree's multiple strategy portfolio functionality. CheckFree Investment Services is the leading provider of outsourced trading, portfolio management, accounting, reporting services and data to broker/dealers, investment consultants and money managers in separately managed accounts.
"Until now, retail separate account managers have relied on CheckFree APL-MSP, but there is great value in the platform for the institutional investor as well," said Alex Marasco, CheckFree Investment Services executive vice president and general manager. "WEDGE Capital Management recognizes the value APL-MSP brings to its approach of managing institutional separate accounts, by fine-tuning an array of investment decisions right down to a particular holding and tax-lot, and completely automating through technology what is often a manually-based process."
Assets flowing into separately managed accounts and interest in multiple strategy portfolios continues to climb. Financial Research Corporation reports that assets in separately managed accounts rose 29 percent last year to more than $500 billion. More than 35 client firms of CheckFree Investment Services, including managers and sponsors, are using APL-MSP to administer their multiple strategy portfolios. The average asset size of a multiple strategy portfolio on the CheckFree APL platform is $500,000, and CheckFree Investment Services has seen the growth of these accounts increase by 300% in one year.
WEDGE Capital Management has $4.1 billion in assets under management, of which 97 percent is invested for institutional clients. WEDGE Capital Management offers a host of equity, fixed income and balanced strategies and utilizes APL-MSP to assist the firm in managing its family of multiple strategy portfolios.
"With APL-MSP, we can trade a particular security in a targeted style without affecting that same security in other styles," said Brad Horstmann, WEDGE Capital Management executive vice president. "CheckFree's APL-MSP tool tags the specific holding at the tax-lot level, giving us the flexibility and precision necessary to effect our investment decisions."
CheckFree introduced APL-MSP in 2002. As the industry's first set of trading, reporting and back-office tools for multi-style portfolios, APL-MSP supports portfolios consisting of internal or "affiliated" managers of a sponsor firm, as well as "best-of-breed" programs: multi-style accounts with unaffiliated managers and an overlay manager who retains control and makes changes according to a portfolio's performance objectives. With best-of-breed programs, investors receive all the benefits of a team of managers who bring their respective style expertise and trading strategies to an account.
CheckFree APL serves as the leading separately managed accounts platform, providing remote processing services to sponsor firms, money managers and financial advisors for the automation of investment management, trading, portfolio performance and investor reporting. CheckFree APL's open platform enables approximately 39 of the top 50 Wall Street (sponsor) firms and 36 of the top 40 managers to interface with each other, and operate in a straight- through processing environment. Institutional money managers also use CheckFree APL to enter and maintain account data, manage trades and measure portfolio performance. . .
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