SEI has unveiled a new front-office liquidity management tool that allows its asset manager clients to continuously track, analyse, and manage the portfolio positions of their funds as well as investor redemption provisions.

Amid the credit crisis and the resulting mass redemptions over the past several years, managers are demanding a more transparent and holistic view of their liquidity position. SEI's new Total Liquidity Management enhances SEI's hedge fund and fund of hedge funds outsourcing platform by meeting this critical industry demand and helping clients better forecast and manage their cash flows.

Total Liquidity Management leverages award-winning technology from Comada, and fully automates the liquidity tracking and reporting process for both investments and investors by seamlessly integrating into SEI's robust workflow processes.

Investment manager clients will be able to develop investment scenarios factoring in terms such as gates and lock-ups, and run attribution and return analyses. Clients will also be able to break down portfolios according to liquidity and strategy concentration terms. In
addition to a full suite of liquidity reporting, the tool also provides pricing, valuation, and performance attribution reporting for fund of hedge fund portfolios.

The tool integrates with an array of trade order management systems, as well as with SEI's accounting platform and valuation process, eliminating the potential user-error risk and additional time required to manually track investor lot-level redemption terms and conditions in spreadsheets. It also provides a secure and efficient method for investment managers to house all investment and investor terms and conditions in one central location.

The tool improves efficiency, reduces errors, and mitigates business risk, while at the same time providing managers with additional insight.

'The demand for widespread transparency among investors and managers alike has increased significantly in recent years, and this tool is yet another way we can help meet that need,' said Phil McCabe, senior vice president and solution head, SEI's Investment Manager Services division.

'Liquidity management and reporting has become much more complex and critically important for managers in forecasting and managing their cash flows, especially in the wake of the liquidity crunch we've witnessed in the last few years. This tool provides managers with an efficient and automated means of monitoring the availability of cash, while minimising the operational risk of not being able to meet cash demands.'

SEI has already begun implementing the tool with clients.-TradeArabia News Service