10 Oct 2011
Viteos, a hedge fund service provider, have announced they are expanding their services to include assisting clients with US SEC Form PF reporting requirements. This solution is aimed at fund administration and shadow accounting clients, as well as to middle office clients.
The firm identifies a need for this solution due to problems with Form PF which is imposing new and significant operational and reporting burdens on registered fund managers. The SEC estimates hedge fund firms will take approximately 75 hours to prepare the initial filing of Form PF, but Viteos says this is understated due to the amount of data required.
“We believe very few fund administrators have either the flexibility or complete data set to meet the requirements of the filing,” said Shankar Iyer, Viteos CEO. “As a next generation fund administrator, we are in a unique position to provide clients comfort around the availability and integrity of data. For a manager there is no ‘off the shelf’ solution and it’s concerning how few managers who qualify are preparing for the January filing.”
Viteos aim to provide a service that can accommodate market structure changes and regulatory requirements globally. They identify that due to deadlines on filing, there is a need for reports to be accurate and delivered on time to avoid problems associated with delays. Viteos plan to overcome this by providing daily processing and not relying on spreadsheets for calculations in order to deliver reports timely.
“Overall, we feel that the alternative investment industry has been slow in waking up to Form PF and its requirements,” adds Chitra Baskar, Viteos COO. “The filing requires a whole host of information including among other data: Performance Attribution; Position Information; Exposures; Leverage; and Counterparty and Collateral exposures to AUM, NAV and Investor Level performance information. Given the specific data requirements, investment managers may even need to restructure the way they collect and maintain their data. Our end-to-end service model combined with a smart and robust technology platform and qualified resources allows Viteos to provide structured, accurate, and timely reporting for Form PF.”
Viteos stress that qualifying AUM for quarterly reporting includes leverage and that the threshold applies to ‘as of close of any business day’ in a quarter, not the end of the quarter. They note that reporting will be more difficult in situations where different funds are administered by more than one administrator or Managed Accounts are not supported by an administrator. They encourage managers to consider the amount of extra work completing the report will require and plan accordingly.
Iyer adds “Given the complexity and myriad problems managers will now deal with, our approach frees them to focus on their core business – investing – secure in the knowledge that this operational concern, as with all of the operational concerns we address on their behalf, has been dealt with and it will quickly become a routine matter.”
The firm identifies a need for this solution due to problems with Form PF which is imposing new and significant operational and reporting burdens on registered fund managers. The SEC estimates hedge fund firms will take approximately 75 hours to prepare the initial filing of Form PF, but Viteos says this is understated due to the amount of data required.
“We believe very few fund administrators have either the flexibility or complete data set to meet the requirements of the filing,” said Shankar Iyer, Viteos CEO. “As a next generation fund administrator, we are in a unique position to provide clients comfort around the availability and integrity of data. For a manager there is no ‘off the shelf’ solution and it’s concerning how few managers who qualify are preparing for the January filing.”
Viteos aim to provide a service that can accommodate market structure changes and regulatory requirements globally. They identify that due to deadlines on filing, there is a need for reports to be accurate and delivered on time to avoid problems associated with delays. Viteos plan to overcome this by providing daily processing and not relying on spreadsheets for calculations in order to deliver reports timely.
“Overall, we feel that the alternative investment industry has been slow in waking up to Form PF and its requirements,” adds Chitra Baskar, Viteos COO. “The filing requires a whole host of information including among other data: Performance Attribution; Position Information; Exposures; Leverage; and Counterparty and Collateral exposures to AUM, NAV and Investor Level performance information. Given the specific data requirements, investment managers may even need to restructure the way they collect and maintain their data. Our end-to-end service model combined with a smart and robust technology platform and qualified resources allows Viteos to provide structured, accurate, and timely reporting for Form PF.”
Viteos stress that qualifying AUM for quarterly reporting includes leverage and that the threshold applies to ‘as of close of any business day’ in a quarter, not the end of the quarter. They note that reporting will be more difficult in situations where different funds are administered by more than one administrator or Managed Accounts are not supported by an administrator. They encourage managers to consider the amount of extra work completing the report will require and plan accordingly.
Iyer adds “Given the complexity and myriad problems managers will now deal with, our approach frees them to focus on their core business – investing – secure in the knowledge that this operational concern, as with all of the operational concerns we address on their behalf, has been dealt with and it will quickly become a routine matter.”
