PrimeOne Solutions
Chris Chanod
13 May 2014
Chris Chanod introduces PrimeOne Solutions, a division of CoreOne Technologies, and discusses where the market is going next
Image: Shutterstock
PrimeOne Solutions is a CoreOne Technologies company. Can you tell us a little about the organisation and your primary areas of business?
CoreOne Technologies is the umbrella company, housing three sister companies—VistaOne Solutions, data management and reporting; DeltaOne Solutions, an exchange-traded fund and index data and technology service provider; and PrimeOne Solutions, which I represent, a complete managed service offering including global cash prime brokerage (CashOne), global securities lending (LoanOne), global synthetic prime brokerage (SwapOne), and multi-format client reporting (PrimeReporter).
PrimeOne was founded on the investment thesis that there would be a number of global banks that made it through the financial crisis with a relatively clean balance sheet and an appetite to enter the capital markets space.
Prime finance has proven to be a cornerstone of the capital markets business, specifically pertaining to hedge fund and global asset manager financing. For new entrants, PrimeOne provides a complete managed service increasing time to market and reducing cost and for existing providers an upgraded, efficiently managed platform at a fraction of the cost to run internally.
What is it that you are offering that others are not? Do you see a gap in the market or is it that you feel you can do it better?
We are the only complete vendor solution for prime finance. The financial crisis provided us with the opportunity to lift-out state of the art technology from global investment banks and re-platform it as a managed service.
We don’t just sell software: we host, maintain, support and customise it to suit the needs of our diverse client base. Each client has its own branch of code, which is managed by our global team of prime finance veterans.
How did you come to be working at PrimeOne?
I came to PrimeOne through two colleagues of mine from my years at Deutsche Bank: Rob Flatley who is the founder and CEO of CoreOne, and EJ Liotta, who runs PrimeOne. Rob ran global electronic execution at Deutsche and EJ ran product development for prime finance when I was a manager in the client service division. I left Deutsche Bank in 2009 and joined the prime broker sales team at Citigroup. EJ and I had kept in touch, so I knew what they were up to and that they were doing something very interesting and potentially revolutionary in the prime broker space.
In early 2013, EJ and I started talking about me running sales and business development for him. It was perfect timing because it was time for me to stretch my legs working for a smaller company, one where I knew I could leverage my 15 years of experience and bring something dynamic to the many relationships I’ve developed.
Plus, after 15 years of suits, wearing jeans to work is a nice perk.
How would you describe the markets acceptance of your offerings?
The response to PrimeOne has been extremely positive. New and adolescent prime finance businesses understand this is the fastest and most cost effective solution for the future of their business. The most interesting development over the last 12 months has been the interest from Tier 1 prime brokers looking to upgrade technology and reduce cost.
We continue to expand our addressable market on a regular basis and, as a salesperson, it’s a pleasure to work for a firm where the quality of the product and the personnel sell itself.
All the talk in the industry is still about regulation—does this hinder or help your technology sales efforts?
Regulations are still the main driver for increased costs in prime finance and across capital markets. Industry intelligence shows that as much as 80 percent of Tier 1 primer broker budget is allocated to regulatory spending. That number is staggering and leaves minimal investment (if any) for maintenance, support and development of a global prime broker infrastructure.
These trends will continue to lead banks in search of new revenue streams and aggressive cost cutting and that is exactly the value proposition of PrimeOne.
Where do you see the industry moving over the next couple of years and what can we expect to see from PrimeOne Solutions?
There continues to be an industry-wide movement into synthetics. Hedge funds and institutional asset managers are allocating a larger percentage of their portfolios to swaps based on a number of factors: market access, leverage limitations in cash, operational efficiencies of actively traded portfolio swaps, and so on. Banks are also seeing the advantages of swap as it relates to balance sheet efficiency and funding ratios.
Our flagship product, SwapOne, is designed to efficiently handle high volumes from the most sophisticated financing counterparties and we are looking forward to continued success in that space.
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