THE AIM ADVANTAGE

Since 1981, Bloomberg has been an innovative leader in building Trading System products. The Asset & Investment Manager (AIM) builds on Bloomberg’s data, analytics, and network to offer a full suite of front-and-middle-office solutions. Here we highlight the key cost, service and workflow advantages that an asset manager can incur from Bloomberg AIM. By Diane Koncur

The Asset and Investment Manager (AIM) order management system is Bloomberg’s comprehensive solution for an institutional asset management firm. Bloomberg AIM is designed to meet the core needs of both the traditional asset manager and the alternative investment/hedge fund manager. AIM allows users to get more out of their terminal by managing their trade lifecycle using the data, workflow, and calculations that they’re already familiar with in the BLOOMBERG PROFESSIONAL^® service. The architecture of AIM is open and flexible so that firms can use their own applications and data in tandem with the solutions offered by AIM. We recently spoke with Dan Matthies, Global Head of AIM at Bloomberg, for more insight into the platform and its place in today’s challenging market.

When asked how AIM has evolved over the past year in the context of the vast changes in the marketplace Matthies said, “in the last 12 months we’ve heard from our clients that issues of market compliance, risk management, and operational efficiency are paramount to the challenges they are facing. We’ve focused on delivering more robust solutions in these areas so that our clients can address these demands and retain a competitive edge in the industry. We’ve also worked closely with several firms to assist them in reducing costs. Often these firms could save money by employing the efficiencies that the platform offers. For AIM to be fit into their overall workflow, however, usually it must first be tightly tied into existing applications and data that the firm uses. To facilitate this we’ve focused on opening up our architecture and providing messaging options via a series of APIs.”

In today’s climate, regulatory market and compliance issues are more significant than ever. In order to call itself truly “regulatory”, a product must address not only regulations in the domestic market, but those in international markets as well. AIM relies on Bloomberg’s global presence to stay on top of all regulatory matters. “AIM’s philosophy is ‘think global, act local’. To execute on that philosophy we need to have local people on the ground in each one of the countries we deal with. We have AIM clients in more than 60 countries now,” said Matthies, “and we take feedback from these customers at the local level as well as from the regulatory bodies in those countries. We stay current on the regulations that will impact our clients so that they can be in compliance as soon as those regulations are imposed. An example is the short-sale rule that was suddenly introduced by the SE C this past year. Within 24 hours of the announcement Bloomberg had coded the necessary logic and rolled it out to production so that clients could comply with that restriction in an automated fashion.”

In addition to strengthening its presence in the regulatory market area, AIM is continuing to expand how its core demographic uses the platform. While other order management systems are present primarily in either the traditional or the alternative space, AIM has presence at both. Matthies said, “Historically AIM focused on two demographics. The first was the traditional institutional asset manager who might have a pension fund, mutual fund, or insurance company and was largely focused on regulatory requirements, order management  controls, and portfolio analytics. The second was the hedge fund that was largely focused on profit and loss, financing, and limiting risk. What we continue to find is that these two demographics are merging and you’re seeing the needs of each present in the other.” AIM’s goal is to focus not on two separate demographics, but to treat both groups as one large demographic, with certain clients weighted toward more traditional investments and others weighted toward more alternative investments. “With more than 500 clients, nearly 200 of which have an alternative approach, AIM is the only buy-side OMS that has this level of global presence in both the traditional and alternative space. As we see the needs of these two demographics merging, we believe that the solutions, experience, and community that we’ve gained from one will allow us to more quickly and completely serve the other,” said Matthies.

Problems often occur not with the order management system itself, but rather with the integration of several disparate applications into one platform. AIM is designed with a “one-stop shopping” approach that provides order management, execution, risk, compliance, middle office, and analysis tools in a fully-integrated platform. For firms looking to purchase a complete front and middle office package, AIM offers a bundled solution at a price point that is very attractive.

However, for firms that have invested in areas of technology that may generate alpha for the firm, AIM’s open architecture allows its various solutions to be unbundled so that firms can integrate only the pieces that add the most value into their overall workflow.

The way in which Bloomberg hosts its software is another differentiator. AIM is an ASP, or “hosted” solution. This means that much of the internal technology, code rollout, servers, and hardware are managed directly by Bloomberg and included in the cost of the AIM platform. AIM’s deployment is facilitated over the BLOOMBERG ANYWHERE® technology—as long as a firm has access to Bloomberg, they also have full access to AIM. Better yet this access is highly secure, controlled, and protected by biometric authentication of the user. In contrast, most competitive products are deployed “in-house”, which involves installation of software, servers, and data lines, etc. This often requires extra staff to perform data software, and hardware maintenance which requires the firm to absorb additional hardware costs not included in the cost of the OMS. “If you are looking for a platform that will have a much smaller technology footprint and will be much more streamlined to help you manage your costs, Bloomberg is that solution,” said Matthies, “some firms we talked to spent 30% of their total cost of ownership on fees from the actual vendor and the other 70% was spent on internal management costs. Bloomberg allows its client to significantly reduce that internal cost.”

Click here for more information