The CTRM Blog

Next week, CommodityPoint will issue version 2.0 of the highly popular CTRM SourceBook. Version 1 was issued in April of this year, and we estimate that there may be close to 10,000 copies in circulation already (based on close to 4,000 downloads from our sites forwarded two to three times to others). CommodityPoint has had a great deal of positive feedback regarding this product and sightings of the SourceBook in the hands of various leading companies in the industry have been reported to us on a weekly basis. Some vendors have told us that they can directly attribute inquiries to it, too.

I spoke with Steven Hughes, CEO of Aspect Enterprise Solutions, this morning and took a full briefing from him. AES, he tells me, now has over 100 staff and over 500 customer companies in 91 countries. Of course, many of these are for the AES market data product but AES can now boast over 30 CTRM customers too. Hughes also said that the vast majority of those were signed in the last 18-months! He told me an interesting story that I’m betting is truly a record for CTRM software implementation… that an African company signed up for AspectCTRM at 10:15am UK time and were up and running using the software in anger by 3pm the same day….. The point he was making was that as the emerging leader in CTRM software on a SaaS-basis, one of their competitive differentiators is speed and cost of implementation.

CommodityPoint has observed a good deal of interest in emerging European markets – those outside of the more traditional CTRM markets of the UK, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany and Scandanavia, recently. Talking to Simon Dawes of Abacus Solutions Inc this afternoon, he reaffirmed our observation and provided some thoughts into what is driving increased CTRM procurement activity in those markets. “It’s really down to three things from what we see,” he said. “Increased trading volumes, expansion into new markets and exchanges and a move into new commodities.” He contrasted that to more established European CTRM markets where buyers are more likely to be engaged in a cyclical kicking of tires or driven by the need for increased integration while hoping to deploy new solutions faster.

Brady PLC (BRY.L), a global provider of trading & risk management and settlement solutions to the metals and commodities industry, recently announced its half-yearly results and they make interesting reading. Brady PLC is almost unique among vendors of Commodity Trading & Risk Management (CTRM) software in that it is a public company and its results are therefore relatively transparent. The company had sales revenues of 4.63million GBP (about $7.13m) in the first half of 2010, an increase of 25% over the same period 12-months ago, and had an operating profit (before exceptional items) of over half a million GBP. Among other highlights, the company has 3.3 million GBP of net cash reserves and no debt. I spoke to Mr. Lavelle, Chief Executive Office of Brady PLC to find out a little more about the results and the company’s experiences in the market.

There has been a flurry of press releases and news this last few days from several CTRM software vendors reporting results. Of course, in an industry dominated by privately-held company’s, such news is often lacking is much real substance in terms of actual revenues, profit and loss and so on, but nonetheless, it does appear to back up CommodityPoint’s assertions that the market is active. Furthermore, we hear from our regular discussions with almost all of the vendors in the space that the market is dynamic and active for CTRM software.