To cater to the growing appetite for data-related platforms, Northern Trust is taking a stake in cloud-based analytics platform Equity Data Science (EDS). EDS’ tools are designed to help generate investment ideas, and assist with portfolio construction and risk management, says Marc Mallett, the firm’s director of strategy and asset servicing.
Like the Aladdin application, Northern Trust’s new system aims to help asset managers bring data from various sources together on a common platform.
“So much of what investment managers do is develop their own proprietary insights on the market, on certain companies, and investments,” Mallett says. “Many times, that data is sort of locked in the heads of individual investors, [or] it can be hidden in spreadsheets or offline documents.”