Advent closes deal with Tamale

It’s official: Advent Software Inc. of San Francisco this week announced it had completed the acquisition of Tamale Software of New York and London, a provider of management solutions that combines research and investment holdings. Advent, a major supplier of adviser software, said the purchase was part of its strategy “to expand its footprint in the front office” and establish itself as a leader in the growing market for research management solutions. Once it is integrated, the product will be called Advent Tamale RMS and will bridge research management and portfolio management systems. The software will create a link between analysts’ recommendations and Advent’s investment performance reporting. The software creates an information hub to manage and access research and provides features that allow a firm to develop workflows and collaborate electronically. Almost 2,000 professionals at asset management firms, private-equity firms, hedge funds, endowments and funds of funds rely on Tamale’s software. Advent paid about $28 million and 906,000 shares of Advent common stock, bringing the purchase price closer to $70 million according to company filings. For more information, visit Advent online. Digitizing portfolio rebalancing Rebalancing a portfolio manually is time-consuming and tedious, but it can be automated through the Internet. One web-based application that does the job, Minuteman from Minuteman Advisor Services of Orange, Calif., monitors both a series of model exchange traded funds and client accounts to ensure they conform to pre-set allocation limits. When a significant enough variance is reached, Minuteman automatically rebalances portfolios to reflect the model. The application includes performance reporting and online access to daily account values for advisers and their clients through a personalized webpage. Users of the system hold more ETFs than mutual funds because they are cheaper to purchase, said Mitchell Maynard, chief executive of Minuteman Advisor. His firm executes trades through Interactive Brokers LLC of Greenwich, Conn., which handles ETF trades of up to 200 shares for $1. For more information, visit Minuteman online. Davis D. Janowski is the technology reporter for InvestmentNews. Read our weekly online columns: MONDAY: IN Practice by Maureen Wilke TUESDAY: Tax INsight WEDNESDAY: OpINion Online by Evan Cooper THURSDAY: IN Retirement FRIDAY: Tech Bits by Davis. D. Janowski