Investment Product and Service Launches

Wilshire Brings to Market Third-Gen Factor Index Series

Wilshire, a global financial services firm, has announced the launch of the FT Wilshire Pure Factor Index Series and the FT Wilshire Multi-Factor Index Series. Each new index launched over the past 12 months overcomes systematic issues that have been the result of legacy technology and index construction. With the new factor indexes, investors can now implement factor allocation decisions without unintended exposures.

Wilshire has undergone a complete modernization of the standard index business model to ensure that its products and licensing are completely investor focused. The investment community will be better equipped to identify opportunities, assess risk and access markets as the markets continue to evolve.

“The market has evolved considerably over the last few decades and many index designs that were formulated during that time are not appropriate for today’s market,” says Wilshire CEO Mark Makepeace. “We’ve built a modern index platform that has given us the agility to test ideas and construct better indexes to overcome the persistent challenges of current incumbent benchmarks. The new third generation factor index series provides more precision in targeting specific factor and multi factor exposures and provides an innovative approach to automating the selection of a diversified set of factors.”

Northern Trust Front Office Solutions Enhances Liquidity Management Solutions for Asset Owners

Northern Trust has launched an enhanced liquidity management data tool in its Front Office Solutions platform. The web-based tool gives asset owners with significant allocations to private market assets better control over their liquidity through unified and customized reporting.

The web-based Liquidity Management module offers users a comprehensive view of their portfolio’s liquidity based on several factors, including private equity real-time data and expected cash flows as well as complex hedge fund contractual terms and conditions.

The tool allows asset owners to monitor and assess their cash flow pacing across private and public markets through a custom time horizon feature, removing the burdensome manual steps that investors often take. Adding a visual element, the tool gives users the ability to view their cash flow pacing through bar charts, providing an enhanced perspective for evaluating highly complex liquidity scenarios.

Front Office Solutions is an integrated, cloud-based service and data platform that enables investment offices to view data from disparate sources across all asset classes in one central repository. It serves complex asset owners including foundations, endowments, family offices, pensions and outsourced chief investment officers with the data they need, in the format they need it, enabling them to make informed investment decisions that help them achieve their strategies.