On September 9, SimCorp, an independent provider of SaaS investment management solutions and trusted partner to the global buy side, announced a new partnership with Qontigo, a leading provider of analytics and indices, and part of the Deutsche Börse Group.

The partnership offers SimCorp clients a fully managed portfolio optimization and risk management and modelling service, within SimCorp Dimension. It is one of several portfolio optimization and risk analytics partnerships that SimCorp will grow, to complement and enhance its own front office suite, with a choice of market-leading tools for alpha generation and decision making. The partnership forms an integral part of SimCorp’s Open Platform, designed to democratize access to industry innovation and simplify vendor management.

Today, asset managers and asset owners license multiple portfolio optimization tools in order to create competitive edge in an otherwise low-yield market. However, the sheer choice in the market, coupled with time-consuming and expensive maintenance of multiple system integrations, is draining resources and diverting attention away from the core business. SimCorp’s Open Platform addresses the market need for full-service innovation, by hand-picking compelling solutions from the best FinTech and industry providers in their field. To eliminate the operational minefield, these solutions are wrapped within an end-to-end managed integration and connectivity service, covering everything, from a single vendor contract to support.

Clients can now integrate Qontigo's best-in-class Axioma Equity Factor Risk Models, Axioma Portfolio Optimizer™ and Axioma Risk™ directly within SimCorp’s platform and through standardized APIs. Supporting a wide range of investment management strategies, Axioma Portfolio Optimizer offers clients a highly flexible and sophisticated approach to customizing portfolio objectives and constraints. Its leading equity factor risk models cover a variety of fundamental and statistical variants with multiple horizons, enabling portfolio and risk managers with one transparent model for a fully aligned view.

And, through Qontigo’s cloud-native solution Axioma Risk, SimCorp Dimension users get access to a scalable, multi-asset portfolio risk management platform designed to support the unique requirements of each investment manager. Ultimately, the combination of these solutions with SimCorp Dimension will deliver clients seamless front office workflows, augmenting portfolio optimization and enriching the investment decision making process.

Anders Kirkeby, Head of Open Innovation, SimCorp, comments: “We’re very happy to have Qontigo join our Open Platform partnerships. Our ambition is to provide a strong selection of partners across the industry, giving clients easy access to innovative solutions, while maintaining secure and consistent data across the value chain. The approach we have taken is to offer optionality over championing one provider in a given space. We’ve done this, for the simple reason that it delivers the flexibility clients need to drive competitive edge and long-term sustainable growth, with SimCorp as the backbone. Effectively it cuts out arduous research, compliance and maintenance of multiple vendor contracts. We believe vendors who can take on such operational responsibility, and deliver one touch point for all client needs, will ultimately create the most success for their clients and deliver a strong ecosystem.”

Brian Rosenberg, Chief Revenue Officer, Qontigo, adds: “We are pleased to become part of SimCorp’s Open Platform community. This partnership is a natural fit for Qontigo, as we share a philosophy of open ecosystem innovation. Providing the end-client with flexibility and choice is critical to both entities. We have worked together to ensure that the functionality and competencies of SimCorp’s Asset Manager solution and our market-leading risk models, portfolio optimizer, and risk management solution, deliver clients a consistent and transparent view for enriched decision making. We look forward to working with SimCorp and to witnessing the growing industry network it is cultivating, to drive client success.”

Press release by SimCorp