Improving multi-asset execution outcomes using EMS automation
Lombard Odier Investment Managers (LOIM)
LOIM is the asset management unit of Switzerland’s Lombard Odier banking group. The business oversees more than CHF 211 billion in assets.
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Many on the buy-side are facing cost constraints and trying to manage costs given the squeeze on margins.
Adrian Biesty, Head of Trading, Lombard Odier IM
Situation
As economic developments of the past few years have placed efficiency challenges on asset managers, LOIM continued to look at ways in which it could use technological advances across its extensive multi-asset trading operations, driving efficiency and enhancing execution outcomes without incurring substantial additional costs.
As part of this initiative, the company decided to bring its outsourced FX processes back in-house and automate them.
Offices across the globe, from Tokyo to New York, that service the investment needs of institutional and wholesale clients alike
Committing manpower to manage small trades from offices around the world would potentially outweigh the benefits of executing those transactions
Looking to streamline the firm’s global operations
Problem
With a changing financial landscape bringing higher costs for investors, buy-side firms have been looking for economies across their operations, including in their trading desks. Until recently, multi-asset specialists were locked into fragmented trading systems and had few routes to bring down spending.
This was the challenge faced by LOIM when it began looking for ways to optimize trading workflow. The firm had previously found it cost-effective to divert some of its FX trading processes to its custodian banks.
Different trading setups and processes needed for each class
Reduce the need for new headcount while freeing existing personnel to concentrate on tasks that add alpha value to the business
Solution
Bloomberg RBLD, created a logic overlay for LOIM’s trading operations that can be customised to automatically process, manage, and send trades from order generation right through to automatic execution with no touch from the traders.
LOIM uses RBLD to action smaller transactions immediately across multiple asset classes, freeing skilled personnel to focus on the larger trades from which they derive greater value. The net result has been improved productivity and trading performance.
Improved productivity and trading performance
Five solutions onboarded:
• Bloomberg FXGO
• Bloomberg Rule Builder (RBLD)
• Bloomberg Execution Management System (EMS)
• Bloomberg Order and Investment Management (AIM)
• Bloomberg Post Trade TCA (BTCA)
Global support team provides insightful solutions, available 24/7
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We are a Bloomberg client through and through and it made sense to try and leverage some of the automation tools that were being developed by them, but also to have a say in how those tools will look in the future, tools that the industry will need.
Adrian Biesty, Head of Trading, Lombard Odier IM
Key insights
Beyond improving desk productivity, automation allows us to re-imagine existing workflows to improve execution outcomes.
Bloomberg partnered very closely with Lombard to ensure they get the right product solution to meet their exact challenges giving them the best of both worlds when it comes to build vs buy.
Automation created an opportunity in inner-source a previously outsourced trading function for cost benefits to the business