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Products October 13, 2010
Northern Trust Expands Exposure Analysis for Institutional Plans
October 13, 2010 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Northern Trust has enhanced its Exposure analysis tool for institutional investors to include the underlying securities of Credit Default Swap (CDS) transactions in its analysis of market exposure.
Reported by Nevin E. Adams
According to the announcement, by adding underlying securities of CDS transactions to functionality that includes analysis of both physical securities and counterparties to over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives transactions, Northern Trust aims to present clients with a more comprehensive view of their portfolio’s exposure to specific entities.
“Northern Trust’s Exposure analysis tool was designed in anticipation of our clients’ need to understand the overall effect of market and counterparty risk on their pension plan, endowment fund or other large investment portfolio,” said Lenora Kelley, Product Manager for Corporate & Institutional Services at Northern Trust. “When a portfolio holding is either positively or negatively affected by market events, Exposure provides insight about the extent to which a fund or plan may be impacted.”
Exposure analysis is available on Passport, Northern Trust’s web portal, to institutional clients and investment managers on a global basis. By entering a security identifier or issuer name on the Passport dashboard, clients can immediately receive total positions in any one entity across asset types and accounts. Along with the focus on identifying market and counterparty exposure, specific features and capabilities of the tool include:
- Display of gross and net notional values and the percent of Total Fund/Plan;
- Break-out of multi-currency funds into their distinct currencies;
- Inclusion of underlying securities of a pooled fund, e.g., mutual fund, in the market exposure component of the analysis;
- Drill-down capability allowing clients to quickly narrow the focus of the analysis ;
- Capability to export data so that users can incorporate the analysis into other reports.
“The Exposure analysis tool is just one development in our continuing line of innovations aimed at making our clients’ lives easier and helping them with their risk management needs. Clients can now focus on analyzing results and making decisions rather than gathering data,” said Paul d’Ouville, head of Northern Trust’s C&IS Global Product Management Group.