Cassini Systems, the leading provider of pre- and post-trade margin analytics for derivatives market participants, today announced its first physical presence in the Asia Pacific (APAC) region with the opening of a new office in Sydney, Australia. The move follows the recent onboarding of a large Australian asset manager and significant interest in Cassini’s services from other firms in Australia as well as throughout the region.
Industry veteran Greg Ballesty has joined Cassini as Product Specialist, APAC to lead the firm’s product efforts in Australia and the APAC region. Ballesty has more than four decades of derivatives, banking, collateral management and risk management experience in the region. Cassini now has a presence on three continents, with headquarters in London and an office in New York, serving asset managers, hedge funds, banks and insurance companies.
Liam Huxley, CEO and founder of Cassini, said: “The opening of our Sydney office will enable us to have a local sales and service footprint and in turn better serve both current and future clients in this region. Now more than ever, given current market volatility, market participants need to understand and analyze the key drivers in margin movement and the related liquidity and cost impact. Additionally, optimizing usage and allocation of collateral is key to reduce liquidity squeezes. Greg’s expertise and experience will undoubtedly contribute to our success.”
Ballesty said: “I’m excited to join the Cassini team and lead the efforts in what will be a brand new, important territory for the firm. The recent deployment by a large Australian asset manager of Cassini’s full front-to-back suite of analytical tools is just one example of the appetite here for reducing the cost of trading derivatives. I look forward to building further relationships with the buy-side community in the region.”
Ballesty’s experience includes roles as Senior Risk Manager for SmartStream Technologies in Singapore and Australia; Sales Director for Lombard Risk in Singapore; and Contractor for Thomson Reuters in Sydney. He started his career with more than 20 years at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ultimately as Chief Dealer.
Cassini’s derivatives margin analytical platform provides an analytics backbone from pre-trade to end of day. Cassini users can calculate any margin on any cleared or uncleared derivatives asset and analyze drivers and movement in margin exposure. This allows buy-side firms to reduce their Initial Margin (IM) levels and maximize margin efficiency, lowering the cost of trading derivatives.
