BST Awards 2024: Best buy-side performance measurement and attribution product—FactSet

Overview

FactSet Performance Solutions (FPS) is FactSet’s official performance measurement and attribution platform providing buy-side firms with basis-point performance returns and multi-asset class attribution across asset classes, investment strategies and firm types. Built on the foundation of FactSet’s Portfolio Analysis, the firm’s analytics platform for attribution, risk and characteristics analysis, FPS is an integrated component of FactSet’s expanding middle-office solutions suite that unifies the portfolio lifecycle to help clients streamline implementation, enhance reporting precision, and optimize operational efficiency.

The solution  

FPS focuses on the three main pillars of the production of official performance results. First, FPS is inherently “distrustful” of client portfolio data before it can be tested, validated and enriched. Perfect portfolio data yields basis-point perfect performance results. Second, embedded market and index data remove the integration burden and cost of supporting global investment mandates. Third, FPS unifies the middle-office production of official performance and attribution results with front office ad-hoc demands.

Secret sauce  

FPS’ functionality includes:

• The unification of official performance production and ad-hoc attribution analysis in a single platform, streamlining implementation and enhancing operational efficiency
• Deployment on FactSet’s SaaS platform, removing the technical burden and support of legacy applications
• FactSet’s embedded market and index data, which can reduce vendor costs and minimize time to market for onboarding and product launches
• FactSet’s portfolio services teams, augmenting clients’ captive production and analysis operational teams

Recent milestones

• Portfolio Vault has been redesigned to enhance scalability, supporting data volumes from hundreds to tens of thousands of accounts
• The GIPS composite builder simplifies managing composite memberships through client-defined rules, with the option to preview changes before finalizing
• Data distribution between asset servicers and clients is now fully automated, eliminating the need for manual intervention

Future objectives

• Introduction of a Workflow Dashboard to enhance transparency, efficiency and offer greater customization options
• FactSet will continue to align B-One and Core FactSet by expanding the data transition process, ensuring B-One results are available for reporting and distribution in portfolio analysis.
• FPS Total Return will enable portfolio-level net asset value (NAV) calculations, initially supporting a single share class with various return types.

Why they won

It seems like yesterday that Bisam’s B-One platform won its first ever Buy-Side Technology award by being adjudged the best performance measurement and attribution product. That was all the way back in 2008 when these awards were in their second edition. Bisam went on to dominate the category for the next decade, and while the name of the product has changed along with its ownership, the bulk of what made it so special is still alive and well and now constitutes the heart of FactSet’s outstanding FPS offering.

For buy-side firms, performance is everything. Attributing performance to specific parts of a portfolio in order to identify the sources of return and measure the portfolio manager’s performance against their investment objectives has historically been less important than pure performance metrics, especially during times when returns have been good and investors happy. Now, however, performance attribution is absolutely critical to buy-side firms and investors alike, and it is here where FactSet excels. Add to that the firm’s wealth of data, its ecosystem of front- and middle-office tools and its cloud-based delivery mechanism, and you have the makings of an outstanding buy-side offering that large numbers of firms have come to rely on.