Boutique middle and back office for hedge funds

Institutional operations for the fund you’re becoming.

Hedgehog runs the daily work behind every trade: booking checks, affirmation, reconciliation, margin and P&L. Senior operators who know your book do it each day, so you don’t have to build the team yourself.

Speak with our team See a day on your book

Daily sign-off

Sample Master Fund LP

Issued T+1
09:42 ET

  • Positions3 brokers, 418 linesReconciled
  • Cash7 accounts, 4 currenciesReconciled
  • Trades63 booked, 63 validated100%
  • Margin2 calls, $1.84mAgreed
  • Breaks1 open, aged 1 dayWith broker
  • Flash P&LSent 18:36 ET, trade dateDelivered

Prepared Coverage lead

Reviewed Second operator

Illustrative

What lands in your inbox each morning.

Our team’s experience

  • Northern Trust Hedge Fund Services
  • Bayview Asset Management
  • GW&K Investment Management
  • Moto Capital Group

Why funds come to us

Most growing funds run operations on one person and a spreadsheet. It works until the day it doesn’t.

  1. 01

    One person is a single point of failure

    A holiday, an illness or a resignation, and nobody else knows why the cash doesn’t tie out.

  2. 02

    Allocators now check

    Operational due diligence asks who reconciles, who reviews and who covers. Being small is not an accepted answer.

  3. 03

    Building it properly takes a team

    A head of operations, an analyst, a backup and the process around them, all before the assets justify the cost.

Your options

Three ways to run a middle office.

You can hire, you can go to a large provider, or you can work with a boutique. Here is how they differ, as plainly as we can put it.

Hire in-house Large outsourcer Hedgehog
Who does the work One or two people you recruit, train and retain A pooled team that covers many funds A named senior operator, with a named backup
When someone is out You are exposed Covered, by whoever is free Covered by a backup who already knows your book
Time to be running Months to hire, longer to build the process Set by their onboarding queue About six weeks, including a parallel run
What it costs Salaries, bonuses, systems and seats Often sized for larger funds A fixed monthly fee, scaled to what you trade
Who you call Your own team A service desk or an account manager The person doing the work
In due diligence Depends on what you have built A recognized name Documented controls, written service levels and a named team

These are generalizations. Ask any provider, including us, the same six questions.

What we run

Everything between the trade and the administrator.

Six services, each with a standard attached. Take all six or start with a few. Every one is documented in a daily runbook written for your fund.

01

Trade capture and booking validation

Every trade is checked against execution evidence on the day it is done. Economic and static terms are validated, and corrections go back to the trader for same-day sign-off.

  • Trade-by-trade check against execution evidence
  • Security master and counterparty static maintained
  • Corrections raised and signed off the same day

The standard

100%

of trades validated the same day

02

Affirmation and confirmation

Equity allocations are affirmed in CTM inside the T+1 window, and cleared swaps are matched so they clear the same day. Bilateral confirmations are checked line by line and tracked until executed.

  • Equity allocations affirmed in DTCC CTM
  • Cleared swaps matched and submitted, rejects chased within the hour
  • Bilateral confirmations routed to your authorized signatory

The standard

≥ 95%

of allocations affirmed by the T+1 cut-off

03

Position and trade reconciliation

A daily three-way reconciliation of your books against prime brokers, FCMs and CCPs, and your fund administrator. Breaks are aged, categorized and traced to root cause, so repeat breaks get fixed at source.

  • Trades, positions and cash, reconciled three ways
  • Break report to your PM and COO each morning
  • Breaks resolved or escalated within two business days

The standard

10:00 ET

reconciliations complete, T+1

04

Margin and collateral

Daily initial and variation margin is reconciled to expected figures. Calls are agreed, disputed or issued under your ISDA/CSA and MSFTA, and movements are prepared for your approval.

  • Initial and variation margin checked every day
  • Calls agreed or disputed under your agreements
  • Funding needs forecast ahead of time

The standard

Every call

agreed or disputed inside the CSA or clearing-broker deadline

05

Lifecycle and settlement events

One calendar for rolls, first notice dates, expiries, exercise dates, resets, coupons and TBA notices. Each event is processed, fails and corporate actions are monitored, and the cash is reconciled.

  • A single lifecycle calendar across every product
  • Reviewed five days and one day ahead of each event
  • Settlement fails and corporate actions monitored

The standard

Zero

missed lifecycle events tolerated

06

Daily P&L and reporting

An end-of-day flash P&L by fund, strategy and trader, with the day’s moves explained and reconciled to your administrator. A weekly operations report shows how we did against every service level.

  • Flash P&L by fund, strategy and trader
  • Weekly operations report against service levels
  • Support for audits and investor due diligence questionnaires

The standard

19:00 ET

flash P&L delivered on trade date

Products we cover today

Detail matters in this work, so here is exactly how each product is handled.

ProductBooking and affirmationSettlement and lifecycleMargin and collateral
Cash equitiesDTCC CTM, broker confirmsT+1 settlement, fails, corporate actionsPrime broker margin, financing
Listed equity optionsExecuting broker give-ups, OCC via clearing firmExercise and assignment, expiries, adjustmentsClearing-broker initial and variation margin
Interest rate and bond futuresGive-ups to FCMRolls, first notice and delivery, expiriesExchange initial margin, daily variation margin via FCM
Cleared interest rate swapsMarkitWire or affirmation platform to CCP (LCH, CME)Resets, fixings, coupon payments, compressionCCP initial and variation margin, price alignment
Bilateral amortizing swapsDealer long-form confirmation, signed by your authorized signatoryNotional step-downs, resets, coupons, partial terminationsISDA/CSA collateral calls
Swaptions (bilateral)Dealer confirmation, signed by your authorized signatoryExercise decisions, physical settlement into swapsISDA/CSA collateral calls
TBAs (agency MBS)TradeWeb and dealer confirms, FICC MBSD48-hour notice, allocations, dollar-roll pair-offsMBSD margin, MSFTA and bilateral margin

Next on the roadmap: cash Treasuries and repo, CDS and CDX, and FX forwards for share-class hedging.

A day on your book

One runbook, from the overnight reconciliation to the evening P&L.

Your coverage lead works inside your OMS/PMS and counterparty portals, under your credentials. Your PM, your COO and your administrator all see the same break log.

  1. By 10:00 ET

    Reconcile

    Trades, positions and cash, three ways. The break report goes to your PM and COO.

  2. Morning

    Margin

    Calls are checked against expected figures, then agreed or disputed inside the deadline.

  3. Trading day

    Validate

    Each trade is checked against execution evidence. Corrections are signed off the same day.

  4. Afternoon

    Affirm and settle

    Allocations are affirmed, swaps go to clearing and lifecycle events are processed.

  5. By 19:00 ET

    Flash P&L

    By fund, strategy and trader, with the day’s moves explained.

Times are Eastern and adjust to your cut-offs.

We own

  • Booking validation and corrections, with your sign-off
  • Affirmation, confirmation and give-ups
  • Reconciliations and break resolution
  • Margin calculation, agreement and disputes
  • The lifecycle calendar and event processing
  • The flash P&L and its explanation

You keep

  • Trading, strategy and risk limits
  • Signature on bilateral confirmations
  • Release of every payment, under dual authorization
  • Approval of movements above your threshold
  • The official NAV, with your administrator
  • Your licenses, systems and counterparty agreements

We prepare instructions.
We never release cash.

Our team’s experience

A team that has seen this work from three sides.

Our team’s experience was built inside a fund administrator, an emerging manager and institutional asset managers. We know what an administrator expects from you, what a growing fund can realistically staff, and what institutional process looks like from the inside.

  1. Administrator

    Northern Trust, Hedge Fund Services

    The other side of the table. We know what your administrator needs from you, and when.

  2. Emerging manager

    Moto Capital Group

    Fund operations inside a small manager, where there is no large team to hand the work to.

  3. Institutional

    GW&K Investment Management and Bayview Asset Management

    Years inside established managers, where review and an audit trail are routine.

  • Graduate trainingMBA in Asset Management, Boston College, Carroll School of Management
  • UndergraduateBBA in Finance, UMass Amherst, Isenberg School of Management
  • LanguagesEnglish and Portuguese

A boutique, on purpose

We would rather run a few books very well than many books adequately.

  • A named operator, not a queue

    The person who reconciles your book is the person who answers when you call.

  • A small number of funds

    We limit how many clients we take on, so every one gets senior attention every day.

  • A principal leads every onboarding

    The runbook for your fund is built by the people accountable for it.

  • Your systems, your data

    We work inside your platforms under your entitlements. There is nothing to migrate.

Controls

Built for the due diligence meeting.

Your investors and prime brokers will ask how the operation is controlled. These are the answers, and each one is written into the engagement.

  • 01

    Maker and checker

    Every booking correction, margin agreement and payment instruction is prepared by one person and checked by another.

  • 02

    Least-privilege access

    We work under your entitlements, with access limited to what the work needs and reviewed quarterly.

  • 03

    No authority over cash

    We prepare instructions. You release payments under dual authorization.

  • 04

    Documented and visible

    Written procedures for your fund, and a break log your whole team can see.

  • 05

    Always covered

    A named backup on every account, and a continuity plan built for remote operation.

  • 06

    Insured and separated

    Errors and omissions and cyber insurance, with information barriers between clients.

Engagement

From first conversation to live in about six weeks.

Fees are fixed and agreed before we start. You choose the level of cover you need now and add to it as the fund grows.

  1. Step 1

    A conversation

    You tell us what you trade, who you face and where it hurts.

  2. Step 2

    A scope of work

    Products, services, service levels and a fixed monthly fee, in writing.

  3. Weeks 1 to 4

    Build

    Discovery, system access, counterparty setup and a runbook for you to sign off.

  4. Weeks 4 to 6

    Parallel run

    We run alongside your current process and compare breaks every day.

  5. Week 6 onward

    Go-live

    We take ownership, then review service levels and fees with you after 30 days.

Essentials

Reconciliations, break reporting and the flash P&L.

Fixed monthly fee

Core

Essentials, plus affirmation, confirmation, margin and collateral.

Fixed monthly fee, banded by trade volume and product count

Full service

Core, plus lifecycle events, static data, reporting, and audit and DDQ support.

Fixed monthly fee, plus per-product add-ons

Launching a fund? We build the operating setup before your first trade, for a fixed launch fee. One-off project? Desk launches, platform migrations and process reviews are quoted as fixed-fee projects.

Straight answers

Questions worth asking any provider.

Do you replace our fund administrator?

No. Your administrator keeps the official books and strikes the NAV. We run the daily middle office and reconcile to them, so month-end holds fewer surprises.

Can you move our money?

No. We prepare payment and collateral instructions. Your people release them under dual authorization, every time.

Which systems do you work in?

Yours. We work inside your OMS/PMS and your counterparty portals, under your credentials and entitlements. You keep the licenses and the data.

What happens when our coverage lead is away?

Every account has a named backup who is kept current on your book, working from the same written runbook.

We already have an operations person. Does this still make sense?

Often, yes. We take the daily processing and become their cover, which frees them for the work only someone inside the fund can do.

What does it cost?

A fixed monthly fee based on the products you trade, your volumes and the services you take. You get the number in writing, with the scope and service levels, before you commit to anything.

Start here

Start with a conversation about your book.

Tell us what you trade, who you face and where it hurts. You will get a straight view of what we would take on, what it would cost, and whether we are the right fit.

hello@hedgehogops.com