Trading Operations Specialist

Associate Portfolio Implementation Specialist

Chicago Loop Onsite M-Th, Friday Remote

The Portfolio Implementation (PI) department resides within Front Office Operations and is responsible for calculating and submitting trade orders for all firm accounts, which include sub-advised mutual funds, limited partnerships (LP's), collective investment trusts (CIT's), institutional accounts, and private client accounts. The PI team processes trade instructions received from PM's to create trade orders that are sent to Traders for execution. Primary responsibilities include trade order calculation, compliance monitoring and reporting, cash monitoring, dispersion monitoring, facilitating model driven trade instructions, and facilitating and monitoring tax trading. This position will have daily interaction with Portfolio Managers (PM's), Traders, Marketing & Client Relations, Investment Advisory (IA) Client Service, Legal and Compliance, and with several other groups within the Operations department. Primary responsibilities of the Portfolio Implementation Specialist (PI) is to ensure that trade orders from the PM's are communicated and processed accurately, in compliance with restrictions, and timely from receipt to execution, interacting with other departments as necessary. This position provides high visibility to portfolio decision-making, trading, and compliance. This individual will need to excel in a fast-paced, time-sensitive environment and must be proactive in establishing a productive relationship with PM's in regard to trade and portfolio composition oversight.

Duties and responsibilities

• Conduct pre-trade compliance checks for trade orders, in accordance with account/fund investment restrictions (i.e., number of holdings, market capitalization and diversification tests), SEC & IRS diversification tests and firm holding limits/restrictions.
• Process trade orders given by PM's, submitting the orders into the trading systems (Trackers, Charles River Investment Management System, etc.)
• Assist with the creation and maintenance of PI procedures.
• Troubleshoot and resolve trade-related problems on a timely basis and provide appropriate follow-up.
• Monitor status of open orders, cash positions and portfolio weightings/dispersion, tax trades and wash sales, alerting PM's about situations that may need addressing, and providing suggestions on how best to bring portfolios in line with PM wishes.
• Monitor performance and holdings across investment strategies.
• Monitor for tax trading opportunities and provide suggestions to PM's for potential tax trades, prepare unrealized gain/loss reports, track tax trades for PM's, and work with GIS to ensure tax trades are properly booked at the custodian
• Proactively maximize the use of systems and recommend improvements in procedures and reporting. Help to identify and implement changes to improve front office workflows. Support PM's with reports, spreadsheets, dispersion, and modeling or other requests.
• Coordinate corporate action and securities lending responses with the PM's and custodians and ensure the responses are processed consistently.
• Work with PMs to maintain models. Facilitate model updates and delivery to sponsors in accordance with our trade rotation policy. Proactively engage in building efficient and scalable workflows for model delivery business.
• Assist with special projects including system upgrades/replacements, compliance updates, adhering to new regulatory requirements, audits, exploring the use of new instruments, etc.
• Perform additional duties and projects as assigned.

Requirements

• 3+ years of experience in Investment Management (fund accounting, portfolio admin, middle office operations, compliance, trade execution, etc.
• Experience using trade order management systems, portfolio accounting systems, and/or execution management systems (Bloomberg, FactSet, Eagle, Charles River)
• Trade Life cycle and Securities and instrument domain knowledge regarding equities, fixed income, options and foreign exchange market
• Knowledge around registered investment companies (RICs) and mutual funds