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Tue, September 11, 2012

Advent Adds Alternative Investments Solution to Black Diamond Platform


Published on 2012-09-11 06:33:46 - Market Wire
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September 11, 2012 09:10 ET

Advent Adds Alternative Investments Solution to Black Diamond Platform

Automated, Streamlined Workflows, Bulk Data Entry, Enhanced Visibility, and Increased Transparency

LAS VEGAS, NV--(Marketwire - Sep 11, 2012) - AdventConnect 2012 - Advent Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: [ ADVS ]), a leading provider of software and services for the global investment management industry, today announced the launch of an alternative investments solution within the Black Diamond platform. The new functionality enables advisors and wealth managers to manage and report the details of their alternative investment holdings down to the transaction level allowing them to provide a more complete financial picture to their clients.

"Advent has been exceptional at giving us what we need," said Christopher Casdia, Compliance and Operations Manager at Homrich Berg. "We now have a complete snapshot of our clients' alternative investments, with security-level performance including income and return of capital distributions. This new functionality makes it much easier for us to communicate with our clients when reviewing their alternative investments and discussing performance."

Alternative investments have become an important part of professionally-managed portfolios as advisors look to hedge portfolios against market risk or find vehicles to drive performance in anemic markets. The ability to provide accurate reporting on these investments as well as a comprehensive view of their portfolios' performance is essential for advisory firms in order to meet their clients' demands for transparency.

"Our clients want to provide great solutions to their clients and their success is directly related to their ability to anticipate and adapt to their clients' changing needs," said Reed Colley, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Black Diamond. "Support for alternative investments is an area of growing interest for many wealth managers, and this solution eliminates one more boundary for them in providing the type of information that is essential to their clients. It's a great example of where we are continuing to innovate new solutions for our clients to help them on their path to greatness."

The alternative investment functionality within the Black Diamond platform automates many common and otherwise time-consuming workflows, including estimate entry, audit tracking and reconciliation reporting. Clients can now update information relating to their alternative investments holdings in bulk rather than having to key them in one asset at a time.

For Casdia, these new features can produce tangible benefits for advisors. "Black Diamond's defined process for daily management of transactions and valuations -- along with their auditing capabilities -- make alternative investments easier to manage and allows us to detect issues quickly," he said. "We can now handle much more transactional and reporting work for clients, helping us increase our assets under management."

Black Diamond's alternative investments solution was developed after an extensive beta test with over a dozen clients and is now part of the platform's standard offering.

About Black Diamond
As an independent business unit within Advent, Black Diamond's mission is to support and cultivate advisor greatness by providing the best combination of technology, service and innovation in the industry. The Black Diamond platform is purpose-built to meet the evolving needs of advisory firms and more than 200 enhancements to the Black Diamond portfolio management and reporting platform have been released since its initial launch in June of 2010. For more information about Black Diamond products visit [ http://www.advent.com/solutions/by-product/black-diamond ].

About Advent
Advent Software, Inc., a global firm, has provided trusted solutions to the world's financial professionals since 1983. Firms in more than 60 countries count on Advent technology to run their mission-critical operations. Advent's quality software, data, services and tools enable financial professionals to improve service and communication to their clients, allowing them to grow their business while controlling operational risks and costs. Advent is the only financial services software company to be awarded the Service Capability and Performance certification for being a world-class support and services organization. For more information on Advent products visit [ http://www.advent.com/about/resources/demos/pr ].

Advent, the Advent logo, and Advent Software are registered trademarks of Advent Software, Inc. All other company names or marks mentioned herein are those of their respective owners.


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