Indus Valley Partners (IVP), a provider of technology solutions to alternative asset managers, has published a summary of the fourth annual IVP Hedge Fund Forum, which was held in New York City on 29 November and provided senior hedge fund professionals an informal forum to discuss the most pressing issues facing the industry.

Moderated by Gurvinder Singh, CEO of Indus Valley Partners, this year’s topic of discussion was focused on how hedge funds are “doing more with less” in a challenging macro-economic environment.
 
Collectively representing an AUM of over USD170 billion, the three-person panel of industry leaders consisting of a CIO, COO and CRO, tackled a range of questions encompassing regulatory concerns, investor demands, and the impact of new technology.
 
Three key themes from the forum:
 
The current sets of pressures (regulatory, investor, market) are not going away anytime soon. The best prepared funds, with the most robust infrastructure will have a key competitive advantage, not only in terms of meeting industry standards but also in attracting new investor capital and not disrupting their focus on generating alpha.
 
Centralized data management, facilitated by ‘holistic’ solutions such as a data warehouse is key to building the kind of robust infrastructure needed in today’s environment.
 
To support both of these claims the role of the CTO/IT is morphing into one of pro-active ‘business-enabler’ rather than the traditional one of passive, post-trade ‘cost centre.’