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Profil Ronald Knecht

...you've found a bilingual blog, so please choose "English" or "German". The blog represents personal views on IT systems and consulting in the asset management and investment banking market and focuses predominantly but not exclusively on issues in German speaking countries, respectively countries with a German speaking sub-community (DE, AT, CH, LU, LI, BE, IT).

For more information about this blog check out the blog note: I-2008 or all blog notes

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Deka und LBB fusionieren doch nicht

Nun also doch nicht! Einzelne Bereiche dagegen schon. Ob damit die KAG gemeint ist scheint noch unklar zu sein. Sollte es dazu kommen, würde möglicherweise die Fonds-Plattform Xentis, die die LBBi im Einsatz hat, zugunsten der auf SimCorp basierenden Plattform der Dealis zur Disposition stehen. Das wäre dann innerhalb kurzer Zeit schon die zweite KAG: die Oppenheim KAG dürfte sich nach den neuerlichen Veränderungen hier in einer ähnlichen Diskussion befinden.

Generell ist das ein vorhersehbarer Trend gewesen - die Anzahl der KAGen sinken, mithin die Anzahl der Fonds-Plattformen, die die Hersteller bei ihren Kunden halten können. Möglicherweise folgt dieser Entwicklung auch eine Konsolidierung der Anbieter?

Dexia agrees sale of fund unit for €380m

Finally Dexia has sold its asset management arm although for much less than originally indicated. The buyer, GCS Capital, interestingly is tightly linked to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (“ICBC”), so GCS' own press release. ICBC has quite a history and has been looking to tap into various acquisition opportunities throughout recent years not only in Europe.

Seems major acquisitions of asset management units are still possible in Western Europe; possibly a relief for those who tried and failed over the last two years...

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

The 2012 FinTech 100 Ranking

The yearly ranking of companies who sell software, hardware and IT services to financial institutions. Although very interesting and including the vendors of the asset management software application market, the definition of this ranking is a bit too broad. E.g. it includes Tata, Diebold and others that I would not consider to part of that market.

Thursday, July 05, 2012

Dealis: Franke übernimmt von Trageiser

Die Dealis verzeichnet einen Wechsel in der Geschäftsführung: Bernd Franke übernimmt von Roman G. Trageiser. In dem Bericht der Portfolio Institutionell heißt es: "Auch Franke ist im Administrations-Business ein alter Bekannter. In seiner langjährigen Tätigkeit für den HSBC-Konzern positionierte er unter anderem die Inka als Master-KAG.". Möchte das Blatt womöglich auf eine Neuausrichtung der Strategie hinweisen?

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Bloomberg LP Moves Into EDM Market, Acquires PolarLake

That's the second acquisition in the product vendor market in the last few weeks - CADIS has been baucht by Markit just recently. I wonder if there is a strategic advantage for the bigger players adding a reference data system to the product portfolio and even more so: why this is happening just now.

Monday, May 21, 2012

Barrington: The Global PA Report 2012

Yet another Barrington report on fund accounting systems ("Portfolio Accounting"is the preferred term there and explicitly used as a synonym). With Germany and Switzerland (2 out of 10 named countries that should cover the entire planet) one would expect that the systems with a significant footprint in German speaking countries would be included. However, I wasn't able to find neither Profidata nor Diamos (MultiFonds, SimCorp and Sungard are included). The majority of the systems seem to be from North America.

Interestingly, vendors like Murex (MX 3), Temenos (WealthManager) and Thomson Reuters (Portia) are included.

Nevertheless an extensive report and a must-have for anyone in the business.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Markit to acquire enterprise data management specialist Cadis

One of the data management system vendors being more successful lately has just been acquired: CADIS by Markit. Its innovative approach of managing data has made it win several awards, despite being a young company (founded in 2007). It will be interesting to monitor the impact of this deal in the reference data systems market.

Credit Suisse fund COO quits

Dr. Lohmann's resignation as the CEO of its asset management may be interesting, as Credit Suisse sold its German KAG to SGSS in July 2010.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Thorsten Junike wechselt zu Alpheus


Thorsten Junike wird ab 1. April 2012 Geschäftsführer bei Alpheus (bisher Vorstand bei Diamos) und für das Geschäftsfeld mit Kapitalanlagegesellschaften, Asset Managern und Depotbanken verantwortlich zeichnen.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Sparkasse Oberösterreich entscheidet sich für e-AMIS

e-Amis, das Wealth-Management-System der Profidata, hat einen neuen Kunden: die Sparkasse Oberösterreich.

Friday, February 10, 2012

Macquarie bietet für Dt.-Bank-Vermögensverwaltung

Nachdem die JP Morgan aus dem Bieterkreis offenbar ausgeschieden ist, ist Macquarie offenbar dazugestoßen.

Wenn, wie im Artikel angedeutet, ca. 400 Milliarden verwaltetes Vermögen nicht mehr auf der Plattform der Deutschen Bank verwaltet werden, könnte sich die dann interessante Frage stellen, ob die Kosten der Infrastruktur für das dann verbleibende restliche Vermögen, den Fonds der DWS, nicht steigen werden.

Wednesday, February 08, 2012

Misys and Temenos agree key merger terms

Another big merger on the way: Misys, which just merged with Sophis not even a year ago, is looking to unite forces with Temenos. As with every merger I have seen in my life, both confirm that both flagship products ("BankFusion" and "T24") will be maintained. However, it will be interesting to see what will happen with other products in the portfolio, e.g. ActisBSP.