Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
This is the first in a series of posts intended to highlight various use cases and scenarios where OCIOs and asset allocators could benefit using the Osyte platform.
Problem:
When OCIO assets under management may be growing, onboarding new client portfolios quickly and transitioning to the OCIO’s preferred portfolio structure is a challenge. OCIOs never start with a clean slate of 100% cash. Most client portfolios are invested in some asset allocation structure with various assets, managers, securities and holdings. OCIO must transition the legacy asset allocation to their preferred asset allocation quickly and effectively while reducing risks in the transition process.
How are OCIOs onboarding client portfolios and transitioning to their preferred structure today:
- Many OCIOs will restructure new client portfolios either through a transition manager or with the help of the internal portfolio/trading/operations team.
- Transitions could be expensive and time consuming for the OCIO.
- Portfolio restructuring activities may be implemented by the OCIO team with spreadsheets and manual processes, and with poor visibility into actual client exposures – legacy, interim and target portfolios.
- The transition process of selling legacy assets and buying into OCIO’s preferred target assets must be tightly coordinated to reduce exposure gaps, avoid settlement delays, prevent cash overdrafts, and minimize other potential risks associated with this process.
- Today OCIOs may instruct one manager to sell, another manager to buy, and wait several days to figure out if the cash was settled and moved properly to the appropriate accounts without much visibility into interim client exposures.
- They may be keeping track of cash movements in spreadsheets. Creating letters of direction (LOD) manually. Be in the dark for several days until they start seeing reporting in custody platforms.
- This is a very cumbersome, time consuming, expensive and potentially error prone process.
- In the end the asset owner client loses on performance!!
How can OCIOs onboard client portfolios and transition into preferred structure with Osyte:
- Osyte’s data management platform is designed to load legacy assets (manager accounts, securities or other holdings) and target assets in a single asset allocation view.
- OCIOs can set their strategic asset allocation targets and have an interim/tactical allocation target for the transition. Legacy assets can be set to 0% target weights, if they need to be fully liquidated or set to appropriate weights as needed if some of those assets were to be retained. New assets can be set to the preferred asset allocation target weights.
- OCIO will have daily visibility into all assets within the multi-asset fund structure.
- OCIO can create sell instructions for legacy assets and buy instructions for new assets across multiple asset types and securities.
- OCIO can automatically create letter of directives (custom templates for each manager) for allocations/redemptions, with appropriate trade details, wire instructions, e-signed LODs in the system, and send instructions to both investment manager and custodian banks electronically..
- The Osyte system can show current exposures, pending trades and net exposures real-time such that OCIO has clear visibility to all asset values in the client portfolio.
- Osyte system can auto-reconcile trades and settlements – both manager allocations [commingled funds, Separate Accounts] and exchange traded securities such as ETFs, mutual funds or even futures contracts.
- OCIO can plan and stage asset movements with forward looking trade dates and settlement dates, track every cash movement, and provide oversight of both legacy, transition and target assets.
- OCIOs can onboard new client portfolios effectively and transition into their preferred portfolio structure without the risk of spreadsheets, implementation delays, or cash overdrafts from mismatched settlement dates.
- Asset owner client wins since there are no exposure gaps or performance holidays.
