Allianz Global Investors Selects thinkFolio Managed Service to Drive Global Fixed Income Platform Evolution

Allianz Global Investors, a leading active asset manager, has adopted IHS Markit's leading investment management platform, thinkFolio, as the strategic decision support solution for its global fixed income business. The firm will leverage thinkFolio as a managed service hosted on the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud.

Allianz GIobal Investors' fixed income team, responsible for managing EUR 193 billion, has broadened and deepened its capabilities significantly over many years and recently evolved its business model into an integrated, global structure. As part of this evolution, the organization is embarking on an ambitious plan to enhance and enrich the decision support platform and toolkit for its global portfolio management and cross-functional investment teams.

thinkFolio will provide Allianz Global Investors with enhanced decision support, portfolio modelling and trade generation. As part of the managed service delivery of thinkFolio, IHS Markit will manage upgrades and real-time feeds, and execute overnight data loads and start-of-day processes.

"We are very happy to have selected thinkFolio as our decision support tool for fixed income at Allianz Global Investors. The functionality and customization capabilities that thinkFolio offers are complementary to our unified investment process, and thinkFolio's ability to handle all instruments within the fixed income asset class is important in helping our diverse range of strategies meet the expectations of our clients," said Franck Dixmier, Global Head of Fixed Income at Allianz Global Investors.

"Allianz Global Investors is embarking on a substantial and strategic initiative to upscale and improve our fixed income operating model," said Markus Lohmann, Global Head of IT at Allianz Global Investors. "We see thinkFolio as a cornerstone of the program to enable and unlock our ambitious target state investment workflows, business processes and integration flexibility. We have a long standing and productive relationship with IHS Markit, including our use of their Enterprise Data Management (EDM) solution, and look forward to partnering with their senior team to execute on this operating vision."

"Given its impressive and long-standing footprint across global, actively managed strategies, we are delighted to support Allianz Global Investors over the course of their exciting transformation journey and beyond," said Brett Schechterman, Managing Director and Global Head of thinkFolio at IHS Markit.

"As asset managers face an increasingly competitive market and challenging operating margins, IHS Markit is well-positioned to provide the technology solutions and services required to enable Allianz Global Investors to scale efficiently including accessing new markets, deploying new cross asset investment strategies, and growing assets in private and public markets without disruption," said Keith Viverito, Managing Director, EMEA Sales for Financial Services Solutions at IHS Markit.

Concluding, Schechterman added, "thinkFolio, with fixed income investing at its foundation, will continue to advance its suite of portfolio management and modelling capabilities and open architecture to suit the next-generation requirements of our clients."

About thinkFolio

thinkFolio from IHS Markit is a leading multi-asset investment management platform delivering sophisticated capabilities across Portfolio Modelling, Order Management & Trading, Cash & FX Management, Compliance and the Investment Book of Record (IBOR). The platform is delivered as a managed service, supporting investment firms that want to reduce costs, maximize flexibility, enhance scale and achieve time-to-market objectives.

About Allianz Global Investors

Allianz Global Investors is a leading active asset manager with over 760 investment professionals in 25 offices worldwide and managing EUR 538 billion in assets for individuals, families and institutions.

Active is the most important word in our vocabulary. Active is how we create and share value with clients. We believe in solving, not selling, and in adding value beyond pure economic gain. We invest for the long term, employing our innovative investment expertise and global resources. Our goal is to ensure a superior experience for our clients, wherever they are based and whatever their investment needs.

Active is: Allianz Global Investors

S&P Global provides industry-leading data, software and technology platforms and managed services to tackle some of the most difficult challenges in financial markets. We help our customers better understand complicated markets, reduce risk, operate more efficiently and comply with financial regulation.

This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.