Sally Crane is Managing Director for Linedata Asia based in Hong Kong, where she oversees all aspects of the firm’s software and services business.
What is your background and what brought you to Asia?
After graduating with a degree in Financial Services from Sheffield Hallam University in the UK, I moved to London to begin my first job in the city working in the market data and software space. Within two years I had an opportunity to join FactSet to open their Hong Kong office. I jumped at the chance and moved to Hong Kong for what was supposed to be two years – 21 years later I am still here! My first 14 years In Hong Kong at Factset served me well in understanding Asia and the institutional and alternative markets – then I chose to specialise in hedge funds by moving across to Linedata.
What is Linedata’s business in Asia today?
Since 2011 when I joined as managing director, Linedata’s business in Asia and globally has expanded, through acquisition and organic development, into a more comprehensive platform of software, data and services for global asset managers. We are still very much focused on the needs of our core hedge fund clients, but we’ve responded to increased interest from Asian wealth managers and traditional institutional managers by developing integrated capabilities that are unique to their requirements, and our business has seen healthy growth across Asian markets.
What do you see as the biggest challenges for fund managers operating in Asia today?
Asia is large and diverse representing many countries, both developed and emerging. For those trading across these multiple markets, that represents a challenge in itself. Each market has its own set of regulations as well as the fact that asset managers need to adhere to regulations from their investors’ domicile. So the regulation burden is immense. There is also a different approach to trading and the use of derivatives in each market and Asian markets are more volatile and change rapidly.
You could say that Asia is not for the faint-hearted…
What are Linedata’s priorities in the Asian region?
Linedata has had a strong presence here now for 16 years and we continue to invest, for example with 2 regional data centers (in HK and S’pore) for both production and disaster recovery that fully support our clients’ local trading. We’ve got a great client team - they take time to really understand their markets and how Linedata’s capabilities across the investment cycle – portfolio management, middle and back office and outsourced servicing - can help clients position their businesses for continued fee pressures, regulatory requirements and operational efficiency.
Last year we acquired QRMO (Quality Risk Management & Operations), a Hong Kong-based provider of outsourced middle-office, shadow accounting, and risk monitoring services, which allows us to provide a unique offering, combining Linedata technology with manpower to run some or all of the middle office for hedge fund clients. This has been really well received and we now leverage Linedata’s own technology to service all former QRMO clients.
2018 has been a special year for us with Linedata celebrating its 20th anniversary. In May we were proud to have the senior global management team joining the Linedata Hong Kong team along with clients in May to mark the anniversary.
What do you think the future looks like for the asset management industry in Asia?
There is definitely global demand from investors for Asian strategies and Asian based managers. We have seen a healthy flow of startups which are now joined by more global money managers and local institutional investors. Historically most of the money has come from Europe, now we are seeing more from the US and increasingly China. As the market in China continues to become more accessible, it will be source of future opportunity for managers in the region.
If you hadn’t been working in financial services, what would you have been doing for a living?
I never really had a back-up plan, I knew I wanted to work in financial services, so I studied for it, saw an opportunity in Asia and jumped straight in…