INTEGRATION SIMPLIFIES COMPLEX TAX CALCULATIONS FOR STRADDLES
PARIS and BOSTON, September 8, 2011: Linedata, the global solutions provider dedicated to the investment management and credit industries, today announced the expanded use of Wolters Kluwer Financial Services’ GainsKeeper® technology to help its mutual fund and hedge fund clients. With this technology, clients of Linedata Mfact are able to automate tax calculations that apply to straddles.
A straddle is an advanced trading strategy that involves holding long and short positions, such as buying both a put and call option, that essentially offset one another. It is used to help limit risk when there is speculation that a security will move significantly, but the direction is unclear.
Straddles are subject to certain tax rules that determine the character and timing of gains and losses realized which can be a concern for mutual funds and hedge funds. The rules require such detailed tracking of investments that they strain manually-based methods and resources. This means fund tax managers can often spend days making calculations in order to prepare financial statements and tax returns.
To help simplify this process, Linedata is integrating GainsKeeper FundTaxPro’s automated straddle tracking functionality with Linedata Mfact, Linedata’s award-winning full portfolio fund accounting solution for mutual funds, hedge funds, trusts, pension funds & third-party administrators. GainsKeeper FundTaxPro applies both of the distinct loss deferral rules for straddles and then tracks positions in future periods.
The straddle tracking capabilities complement other GainsKeeper FundTaxPro functionality currently integrated with Linedata MFact, including tracking, calculating and reporting of tax adjustments related to wash sales and Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).
“Straddle tax rules are very difficult and present a number of challenges for mutual fund administrators—many of whom are making calculations manually, which can lead to a significant margin of error,” said Peter Muldoon, Executive Vice President of Back Office Solutions at Linedata. “GainsKeeper automates an extremely complex process, helping prevent inaccurate distributions for the fund and potential IRS penalties.”
“Working with Linedata we have the opportunity to help more financial professionals in the fund community tackle their biggest and most time-consuming tax challenges,” said Chuck Ross, general manager of Investment Compliance Solutions at Wolters Kluwer Financial Services. “We are excited to expand our relationship with Linedata and work with their clients to ease the burdens of complicated tax rules.”
ABOUT LINEDATA
Linedata is a global solutions provider with 700 clients operating in 50 countries. With more than 800 employees across the globe, Linedata is dedicated to the investment management and credit community. Linedata has been at the service of the financial industry from day one, and applies its market and client insight to provide innovative and tailored mission-critical software and services that help its clients grow. As a pioneer for over 10 years with the set up of ASP infrastructure for the financial industry, Linedata has preached and spread this model throughout the global financial community, for its full range of products. Headquartered in France, Linedata achieved revenues of EUR 136.2 million in 2010. This company is listed on Euronext Paris FR0004156297-LIN – Reuters LDSV.LN – Bloomberg LIN:FP.
Linedata provides comprehensive front-to-back solutions and services to manage all types of investment processes, from pre-trade to post-settlement, across a wide range of firms, including institutional portfolio and collective management companies, hedge funds, prime brokers, fund managers, transfer agents, corporate savings fund managers, and subsidiaries of banks or independents.
ABOUT WOLTERS KLUWER FINANCIAL SERVICES
Wolters Kluwer Financial Services is a comprehensive regulatory compliance and risk management business that helps financial organizations manage operational, compliance and financial risk and reporting, and improve efficiency and effectiveness across their enterprise. The organization’s prominent brands include: FRSGlobal, ARC Logics for Financial Services, PCi, Compliance Resource Network, Bankers Systems, VMP® Mortgage Solutions, AppOne®, GainsKeeper®, Capital Changes, NILS, AuthenticWeb™ and Uniform Forms™. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services supports its global customers with more than 30 offices in 20 countries and is a leading worldwide provider of compliance and risk management solutions for the financial services industry, serving more than 15,000 banking, insurance and securities customers across the globe. Wolters Kluwer Financial Services is part of Wolters Kluwer, a leading global information services and publishing company with annual revenues of (2010) €3.6 billion ($4.7 billion) and approximately 19,000 employees worldwide. Please visit our website for more information.