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Mellon Combines Analytical Solutions and Eagle Performance

Mellon Financial Corp. has combined the services of its Mellon Analytical Solutions (MAS) business with the product set of Eagle Performance.

MAS was formed in September 2005 when Mellon acquired Russell Investment Group's 50 percent share in the Russell/Mellon joint venture. The business unit provides performance measurement, analytics, attribution, universe and risk analysis solutions to institutional investors and money managers. Eagle Performance, developed by Mellon's Eagle Investment Systems subsidiary, provides solutions to institutions through portfolio and mutual fund performance measurement, performance attribution, index data management and portfolio analysis and reporting.

"Our value proposition for MAS is centered around flexible data, services and software solutions. By extending our capabilities in those areas, we are able to better meet our clients' evolving needs and broaden our market-leading position," said Gunjan Kedia, MAS president, in a release. "This initiative reaffirms our commitment to our key client segments - pension plan sponsors, foundations, endowments, consultants and investment managers - and further meets their ever-evolving performance/analytics needs."

State Street Global Advisors Expands Advanced Research Center

State Street Global Advisors, the investment management arm of State Street Corp., has expanded its Advanced Research Center (ARC), an internal think-tank that creates proprietary models aimed at continuous improvement of the investment process.

Mama Attiglah, Alejandro Gaba, Renato Guido, Zhan Onayev, Raul Rivera and Ritirupa Samanta have joined the quantitative research analysts team led by Mark Hooker, managing director of the ARC. These analysts will enhance existing models and incorporate newly-developed quantitative forecasting techniques into the investment process at State Street Global Advisors. Attiglah and Guido are located in the ARC group in London, headed by Ralph Smith, while Gaba, Onayev, Rivera and Samanta are based in Boston.

"The addition of these talented individuals to the research team is an illustration of our commitment to research-driven innovation," said Hooker, in a release. "We will continue to build on our quantitative research capabilities in order to deliver innovative investment solutions, including alpha-generating strategies, to our clients."

The ARC serves as the repository for State Street Global Advisor's accumulated investment experience and intellect. Combining global research capabilities, industry-wide intellectual capital and adherence to rigorous research standards, the ARC's analysts rely on their experience in quantitative financial engineering modeling to design quantitative investment solutions.

Clearbrook Financial Selects CheckFree APL to Power Investment Management Platform

Clearbrook Financial, LLC, a financial solutions provider to the institutional investment community, has selected CheckFree APL from CheckFree Corp. to provide advanced portfolio accounting for the Clearbrook Investment Management Platform. CheckFree has been deployed in Clearbrook Financial's North American operations as a component of its institutional asset management offering.

By incorporating CheckFree APL into its open architecture portal platform, Clearbrook Financial is able to offer advanced portfolio performance measurement to enable transparency, promote client advocacy and streamline new business processes. The Clearbrook Financial platform offers a single point of entry to investment management services while facilitating end-to-end operational efficiency.

CheckFree APL delivers a separately managed accounts platform that provides remote processing services to sponsor firms, money managers and financial advisors for the automation of investment management, trading, portfolio performance and investor reporting. Institutional money managers also use CheckFree APL to enter and maintain account data, manage trades and measure portfolio performance.

"We came to the conclusion that by integrating CheckFree APL into our Investment Management Platform, we can leverage the most efficient performance reporting engine in the industry to provide our sponsors with unparalleled portfolio performance measurement," said John Morris, CEO of Clearbrook Financial, in a release. "CheckFree APL allows us to offer managers participating in our business a platform that is familiar, efficient and enables them to easily interface with us and the custodian."

HighMark Goes Live With CADIS Data Management

HighMark Capital Management, a San Francisco-based investment advisor, has implemented the CADIS Data Management Platform (DMP) from Citadel Associates. Highmark will use CADIS DMP to support its new order management system implementation.

The selection of CADIS was based on its business focused user interface, ease of implementation, ability to build in prioritized phases and its fit with Highmark's technical architecture. "CADIS helped us to rapidly and cost effectively implement our OMS system, as well as supporting our broader data management strategy. CADIS gives us the flexibility we need and will adapt to our growing business," said Robin Bacon, director of IT at HighMark, in a release.

The implementation of CADIS was undertaken by HighMark's business analysts, developers and IT operations staff with supplementary implementation, best practice and training support from Citadel Associates partner consultancies.

Metropolitan Asset Managers Chooses Charles River IMS

South African firm Metropolitan Asset Managers has selected the Charles River Investment Management System (IMS) from Charles River Development to facilitate the firm's Cape Town fund management operations, including portfolio management, order management and compliance. Metropolitan has approximately US $6 billion assets under management and trades all asset types including equity, fixed interest, derivatives and currency.

Charles River IMS is a front- and middle-office software suite for portfolio management, order management and electronic trading, real-time compliance monitoring, and the centralized management of trade matching, confirmation and settlement workflow. The system offers full support for the life of a trade and links to internal and external sources including brokers, exchanges, electronic communication networks, alternative trading systems and securities matching utilities, for real-time, paperless communications.

Metropolitan replaced their previous system due its inability to manage all asset classes and transactions. "While our previous system handled most types of transactions or securities, it did not have as many variations open to us. Charles River IMS provides the ability to perform extensive modelling scenarios, access to robust compliance tools, FIX capabilities and a modern technology platform that easily integrates with the rest of our trading systems," said Anton Berkovitz, executive responsible for business strategy at Metropolitan, in a release.

Charles River IMS's open architecture allowed integration with Metropolitan's existing back-office solution as well as the system utilized for the management of its collective investment portfolios. Automating the seamless, electronic transfer of information among the systems will assist Metropolitan in delivering reduced processing times and faster reporting.