Following the acquisition of the evaluated pricing business of CSV Incorporated in April, SIX Telekurs is continuing to develop this strategic part of its business by forming a focused business unit and adding several senior staff resources, including some new hires.
"Evaluated Pricing is a strategic focus for SIX Telekurs, and we are deeply committed to further developing our capabilities in this important area", says Bruno Burlon, former Chief of Staff of SIX Telekurs. Burlon now heads the company's newly formed Evaluated Pricing business unit, which combines the CSV operations, the previously existing Fair Value Pricing product and a range of third party evaluations sources. This reorganization is intended to streamline SIX Telekurs' evaluated pricing processes and offering, allowing the company to enhance its focus and co-ordination. Burlon continues, "We intend to grow this business, and we continue to invest in it. One of the key investments in this area is in experienced evaluations staff so that we can be even more responsive to our customers as their needs change and evolve."
The first of these hires is Ian Blance, who is responsible for the business development of the new unit. Blance has 20 years experience in the valuations business. He spent three years as an independent consultant following a 12 year career at Interactive Data, where he set up the firm's international evaluations business in London and went on to run the global operations in New York.
Ian Blance says, "I am very excited about working to develop SIX Telekurs' evaluated pricing business. Recent global developments mean that any financial institution looking for a robust, consistent and compliant valuation solution will have to consider evaluations for at least some portion of their holdings, and SIX Telekurs, with its global scale and extensive reference data capabilities, is in a very good position to meet this requirement."
As part of this restructuring, Dr. Perry Beaumont, previously President of CSV Incorporated, has become Head of Evaluated Pricing Research & Development for SIX Telekurs, reporting to Burlon. Perry has more than twenty years of professional experience, having devoted his career to a variety of different aspects of successfully delivering quantitative solutions, from both an academic and practitioner's viewpoint. In addition to being a member of the MBA faculty at Fordham University, he is the author of highly regarded books in the quantitative arena as well as numerous articles. He is a frequent speaker at quantitative forums in and has also appeared on CNBC and in the national press. Perry's contributions have been recognized with a number of professional and academic distinctions and awards.
"One of the clear lessons learned in the wake of the global credit crisis is that the markets need independent, transparent and auditable evaluations for all hard-to-value securities, regardless of whether the security is complex or simply illiquid", says Beaumont. "To address the full spectrum of client pricing requirements, the SIX Telekurs Evaluated Pricing Service brings together best of breed services for everything from investment grade fixed income to highly complex structured instruments and derivatives based on a wide variety of underlying security types. Our heightened focus on evaluated pricing is in direct response to the increasing level of market demand and awareness."