TD Securities Chooses Eagle Systems for Prime Brokerage

Date: Tuesday, August 10, 2004

TD Securities Inc. will use web-based portfolio management, investment accounting and performance measurement systems provided by Eagle Investment Systems Corp. as part of its prime brokerage services. TD Securities officials said the company would offer its prime brokerage customers access to the Eagle systems through its own web site. Those systems include Eagle PACE, a data hub and portfolio management system; Eagle STAR, an investment accounting system; and Eagle Performance, which measures investment performance. Salim Jivraj, vice president and director at TD Securities, said the company’s policy in general is to “buy rather than build.” Since there was no way to buy a model for running a prime brokerage, TD Securities built that portion of the business from scratch. But when it came to adding functionality it became clear that buying a solution would be easier than constructing one in-house. TD Securities chose Eagle Investment Systems over five other firms that initially responded to its request for proposals, Mr. Jivraj said. He said he expected a phased roll-out of the products, with some clients using it by fall and most up and running by January 2005. Lionel de Mercado, managing director and global head of equity finance for TD Securities, said the partnership with Eagle moves his firm ahead of the pack in Canadian prime brokerage. “Certainly in the Canadian market we feel this will put us ahead of the curve pretty quickly,” Mr. de Mercado said. About 90% of TD Securities’ prime brokerage clients are Canadian, and most of them are hedge funds, Mr. de Mercado said. He said Canadian investment managers prefer to use Canadian service providers, including prime brokers.