The awards, hosted by Custody Risk magazine in London this month, recognise excellence in the provision of custody, fund administration and associated services in the European asset management and securities industries.

“Chariot Phase 2 was a ground breaking project for the European hedge funds industry, and it is great to see this being independently recognised,” said Rupert Vaughan Williams, co-founder of Comada. “Significantly, its implementation allows seamless dealing in equalised funds administered by Custom House, bringing with it greater transparency for hedge fund investors.”

Said Mark Hedderman, CEO of Custom House: “Here at Custom House we are committed to a culture of innovation for our hedge fund clients. We chose to work with Comada because of the group’s ability to deliver solid, institutional grade technology which would meet our own high standards of security and investor confidence.”

For further information please contact:

Stuart Fieldhouse
Media Relations
Email – sf@comada.com
Tel: +44 (0) 7793 882230

About Comada

Comada was founded in 2004 to provide the alternative funds industry with technology solutions that would revolutionise operational processes and the way the industry communicates. Our vision has always been to deliver system solutions that make a real difference to our clients, which facilitate the way they do business, and help them to radically reduce operational risks. At the core of this delivery is our M.A.T.ware transaction-driven technology.

LONDON: Hedge fund technology specialist Comada is pleased to announce that it has won the award for Leading Fund of Fund Technology Provider from prestigious hedge fund trade magazine The Hedge Fund Journal. The award was given in recognition of Comada’s ongoing success with the deployment of its M.A.T. Share product for funds of funds.

Said Rupert Vaughan Williams, co-founder of Comada: “We are very pleased to receive recognition for M.A.T. Share, which continues to build on its transaction level architecture to address specific challenges regarding scalability and transparency in the fund of hedge funds industry. The past few years have highlighted our ability to address the liquidity management and operational challenges faced by this industry, providing a clear picture for those who manage hedge fund portfolios, and allowing them to deliver meaningful reporting to their clients.”

M.A.T. Share is a dynamic, web-based application for funds of hedge funds, distinguished by its ability to connect funds of funds with hedge fund administrators and custodians. Its robust technology platform allows portfolio managers to make trades and receive confirmations electronically, and assess liquidity within portfolios on a real-time or hypothetical basis.

Said Dave Shastri, co-founder of Comada: “M.A.T. Share makes use of Comada proprietary M.A.T.ware technology to address many of the operational challenges that the market turbulence of the recent past brought to the fore. The success of this product partly stems from its ability to do this while meshing seamlessly with existing legacy systems within a fund of funds operation.”

This is the second time Comada has been recognised for its ongoing programme of technology development in the hedge funds space by The Hedge Fund Journal. Founded in 2004 by a seasoned team of technology professionals with a background in asset management operations, Comada is at the cutting edge of transactional systems development for the hedge funds industry.

Editor’s notes:

About Comada
Comada was founded in 2004 by experts in the hedge fund front, middle and back office areas to develop specialist transaction level software applications. Its M.A.T.ware technology is specifically designed to enable fund of fund managers, their clients and counterparties to significantly enhance their operational risk management capabilities. Greater transparency and accurate liquidity profiling from underlying portfolios are key to the benefits this technology has to offer. Comada’s flagship product, M.A.T. Share, is already enjoying considerable recognition as a ground-breaking tool for industry participants seeking to reduce operational risk by delivering highly scalable functionality through smoother Straight Through Processing capabilities.

Hedge fund technology specialist Comada has been recognised for the excellence of its M.A.T. Share platform at the Funds Europe Awards in December 2008. This special commendation was given for the category of European Middle Office technology.

According to leading asset management trade journal Funds Europe “This hedge fund middle-office provider has bridged the gap between poor operational infrastructure in the hedge fund world and the stringent requirements of institutions such as pension schemes. Counting Gottex Fund Managers among its clients, Comada is using its M.A.T. Share product to replace the use of spreadsheets as a risk control tool at fund of hedge fund firms with better technology architecture. This in turn allows the fund houses to scale their business. Judges recognised this as a major necessity within the institutional hedge fund world, and so Comada was given a special commendation.”

Mark Porter Chief Operating Officer, Fund Services, UBS Global Asset Management presented the award to Susanne Petrie, Comada’s business development manager. M.A.T. Share is a hosted transaction level portfolio and liquidity management solution. Its enterprise class technology seamlessly integrates hedge fund data, delivering powerful operational risk management tools delivered through web accessed reporting to and between clients and service providers.

Co-founder Rupert Vaughan Williams remarked that “Comada was particularly pleased to accept this commendation from an industry leading publication like Funds Europe, signifying a strong endorsement of the specific type of operational architecture required for managing and executing hedge fund trades. Solutions like ours are likely to be in even more demand from institutional-scale managers as they seek to grow their businesses in a significantly altered and challenging environment this year.”

Funds Europe is the dedicated journal for cross-border fund professionals in Europe. It covers all areas of the asset management business with a circulation of over 10,600 copies each month. Established in 2002, funds europe is an influential and recognised market leading publication within the asset management and pension communities.

Fund of funds technology specialist Comada has been recognised for the excellence of its M.A.T. Share software, picking up the award for Best Fund of Funds Technology Provider at the annual Hedge Fund Journal Awards this month.

Receiving the award for Comada were co-founders Rupert Vaughan Williams and Dave Shastri.

“We greatly appreciate this recognition for what we set out to accomplish at this relatively early stage in the development of our company,” said Vaughan Williams. “We are clearly delighted with the way the fund of funds industry has received our platform, and it’s great to have this recognised with an industry award.”

Comada won the award on the strength of its M.A.T. Share ASP model, including the speed and ease of the software’s delivery via browser-based desktop technology. M.A.T. Share’s value for funds of funds wanting more efficient and transparent liquidity management features was singled out for praise by the magazine, as was the way in which it allowed funds and their service providers to manage their data.

“M.A.T. Share is a fully-supported transaction based portfolio management product that can be internally or externally hosted,” said Comada co-founder Shastri. “It has been designed for use for managers of funds of funds, and its ability to get them using data beyond the confines of spreadsheets, and communicating that data with their service providers, is one of its great appeals for this sector.”

Hosted annually by The Hedge Fund Journal in London, the awards are designed to recognise the top hedge fund service providers across a range of categories. Held at the Natural History Museum in London, the ceremony was attended by representatives from a range of major firms, including banks, fund managers, and legal practices.

The Hedge Fund Journal is the leading trade journal for the European hedge funds industry. Originally launched in 2004, it is now widely read, not just in Europe, but further afield. This is the second year the magazine has hosted the awards.

Comada was also recently commended by The Banker magazine in that journal’s annual technology awards, again for M.A.T. Share’s ability to help funds of funds integrate portfolio management data effectively.

Hedge fund technology provider Comada has recently been commended for its M.A.T. Share solution in the Back Office Innovation category of The Banker magazine’s 2007 Technology Awards. M.A.T. Share was the only hedge fund-specific technology solution to be singled out in the awards.

According to The Banker, “The M.A.T. Share solution brings order to chaos by sorting out the fragmented, non-standardised portfolio management issues in funds of hedge funds. It also offers an ASP approach in a market that does not have hi-tech departments.” The magazine added that “by gradually extending the approach to full STP, Comada is generating an innovative approach to an unstructured marketplace with M.A.T. Share.”

M.A.T. Share is designed to support portfolio managers responsible for funds where the main underlying security is hedge funds. It is available as a fully-supported software package that can be internally or externally hosted. Amongst the functions it covers are: portfolio monitoring, liquidity management, cash flow, performance measurement, data integration, and trade confirmation.

“We are delighted to have received this commendation from a magazine which enjoys such a high level of respect within the financial services industry,” commented Rupert Vaughan Williams, co-founder of Comada. “To.also receive such praise from an independent panel of judges within such a short time of M.A.T. Share’s launch is a welcome endorsement of our vision for our innovative operational solution for the funds of hedge funds industry which stems from treating funds as securities in their own right, allowing us to deliver a truly scalable platform to managers and their service providers.”

The Banker’s panel of judges included Chris Skinner (Chairman of the Financial Services Club); Parveen Bansal (Senior Researcher with Financial Insights); PJ Di Giammarino (Chief Executive of JWG IT Ltd); Clive Hawkins  (European Head of Equities, UBS); Tim Jones (Non-Executive Director,  Capital One Bank); Jamie Martin (Head of Payments, National Australia Group); Pekka Jarvinen (Head of Research, Nordea); Sherrie Rad (Strategy Project Manager, Business Operations, HSBC); Eric Sepkes (Vice President,  Global Transaction Services, Citibank); and Clive Winchup, Divisional CIO,  UKRB, Lloyds TSB).

Dave Shastri, another co-founder of Comada, said: “From the beginning,  we wanted M.A.T. Share to be recognised for its innovative approach to solving some of the very real operational problems the funds of hedge funds industry is facing today. There is a need within this industry for a solution that will provide portfolio managers with the means to share information easily within their organisation and with their service providers. We also realise that funds of funds need a flexible product that will not require a massive investment in time to implement properly.”