Provision of financial data

Tender description

Merseyside Pension Fund (MPF) currently manages c.£1.42bn of equities internally, representing 26.44% of its total exposure to the asset class (data correct as at period end 30-April 2022). A financial data provider is integral to the day-to-day management of MPF's internally-managed portfolios by its four in-house equity Portfolio Managers (i.e. Neil Gill, Daniel Proudfoot, Gregory Campbell and Allster Goulding). It is imperative that the software should provide a number of key features, including a secure environment in which to route single-stock and basket orders directly to the brokerage desk for execution, the ability to perform complex calculations such as portfolio performance attribution across multiple time series, the ability to allow Portfolio Managers to share ideas with each other within a secure environment, to allow Portfolio Managers to assess and modify (if necessary) portfolio risk; as well as providing timely, accurate qualitative and quantitative economic, financial and market data . Furthermore, a financial data provider should provide real-time stock price and volume data in order to facilitate effective decision making. At present, only Bloomberg can do this. Finally, one of MPF's pooling partners (i.e. West Yorkshire Pension Fund) also subscribes to Bloomberg. As MPF looks to potentially collaborate with West Yorkshire Pension Fund on the equity side in the future, it is important that both Funds utilise the same financial data service provider since this facilitates secure, real-time sharing of ideas in an attempt to bolster revenue.