The TRADE 57 | Page 71

[ S U R V E Y | E X E C U T I O N M A N A G E M E N T S Y S T E M S ] Charles River The acquisition Charles River by State Street in Reliability and of Availability a $2.6 billion in July this year was a landmark deal in Latency the EMS space, not least because of the size of the fee involved. Charles Personnel River has been one of the foremost Client Service vendors in the front-office space for a number of Ease-of-Use years through its solutions portfolio, and the EMS Handling of New survey mainstay saw Versions/Releases a 12% increase in the number of responses received year-on-year for the 2018 Breadth of it Broker Algorithms edition. Timeliness of Updates for Broker Changes However, there will be plenty of work ahead for FIX Capabilities Charles Rivers’ new owners according to its scoring this year, as firm Class recorded the lowest average Breadth of the Asset Coverage score of all the major providers profiled (4.83), well Breadth of Direct Connections to Venues below the survey-wide average of 5.56. The vendor Product Development failed to score above 5.00 in eight of the 13 catego- ries under review, lagging behind its Systems competitors in Ease of Integration to Internal Overall Cost of Operation 2018 2017 4.47 4.21 almost every area. Despite 5.26 these low scores, Charles 5.14 River did record increased year-on-year scores in 4.45 most significantly 5.02 in the breadth of eight categories, broker algorithms category, which increased by 0.79 4.2 4.35 on last year’s score. 4.91 4.82 Around two-thirds of respondents for Charles River 4.13 4.17 of assets, spread even- manage more than $50 million ly across North and the United Kingdom. 5.26 American 4.47 Respondents were mainly from the institutional 4.89 4.55 and long-only sectors, with a variety mix of activity 5.34 income and foreign across listed 5.49 derivatives, fixed exchange. The majority of respondents did not plan 5.26 5.09 to onboard 5.27 additional EMS providers or switch pro- 5.06 viders entirely; however given how respondents have 4.53 River, State 4.51 scored Charles Street may have work ahead of them to keep the 4.95 system’s user base happy. 4.76 5.14 5.26 Reliability and Availabili ty 4.45 Latency 5.02 4.2 4.35 Client Service Pers onnel 4.91 4.82 Eas e-of-Use 4.13 4.17 Handling of New Versions/Releases Breadth of Broker Al gorithms 5.26 4.47 Timeliness of Updates for Broker Changes 4.55 4.89 5.49 5.34 FIX Capabiliti es Breadth of Asset Class Coverage 5.26 5.09 Breadth of Direc t Connec tions to Venues 5.27 5.06 4.53 4.51 Product D evelopment 4.76 4.95 Eas e of Integration to Internal Sys tems Overall Cost of Operation 0.00 4.21 1.0 0 2.00 3.00 20 18 4.0 0 4.47 5.00 6.0 0 7.00 20 17 Issue 57 // TheTradeNews.com // 71