Overall unweighted winner: Nomura
Once again Nomura was the high flyer in Global Investor/ISF’s transition management survey. Craig Blackbourn, vice president, transition management at Nomura says the firm’s winning status is reflective of the consistency of their transition management process combined with a highly client-focussed approach.
“Despite increased market volatility, we believe that our platform delivered constantly versus pre-trade estimates, testament to our leading approach to transition risk control,” he says.
Strength across the board is naturally important for a transition manager, since a transition will require expertise in a range of disciplines including project management, risk management, analytics, execution, reporting, as well as operational control. Blackbourn therefore considers Nomura’s wide-ranging strengths as critical for clients who rely on the whole transition being managed effectively and seamlessly implemented.
The firm has also integrated its equity, fixed income and FX analytical platforms to provide a real-time cross asset approach to risk and cost minimisation which Blackbourn says resulted in significant savings for clients.
Since winning the survey last year, Nomura has continued to make developments in technology, including enhancing the quality and clarity of its reporting and operational efficiencies.
Investment into the emerging markets was also a key theme for Nomura’s clients over the past 12 months, says Blackbourn.
“Nomura has significant experience within the emerging market space and provided clients with efficient implementation of their transition events, managing all facets of the events including operational readiness, project management, interim investment solutions via ETFs and futures, global execution and settlement control,” he says.
As for what lies ahead, Blackbourn says the focus for 2012 will be to listen to client feedback and prepare for changes ahead in the industry.
“There are many changes ahead for the industry. At Nomura we will continue to meet these challenges head on and ensure our platform is able to accommodate the demands of our clients and market regulation alike,” he says.
Overall footprint winner: Citi
Citi are among the few transition management providers with truly global coverage and one of only three that qualified across all three regions of the Global Investor/ISF survey.
This was reflected in its top ranking in the majority of the footprint tables in the survey, including the OVERALL, QUALIFIED IN ALL REGIONS table and ASIA PACIFIC tables.
Steven Dalzell, head of transition management, EMEA, Citi, says: “We are happy that we won the footprint table as this confirms our global presence.”
Citi’s unweighted scores were brought down by its large presence in Asia Pacific. The average rating for almost all firms was lower in this region and Citi had a disproportionate amount or responses – almost double the amount than the next nearest firm. Indeed, in the unweighted tables it achieved third in EMEA and second in AMERICAS.
The unweighted results were due to the “large footprint in Asia, where some clients score less favourably. We were hurt in the overall table but are proud of our results.”
Citi is picking up more business throughout the world. In EMEA the business is progressively trending upwards, in the US the pipeline is very strong and the Asia team “is firing on all cylinders”.