The CTRM Blog

In this ever-evolving world of acronyms, abbreviations and contractions, it really does seem quite possible that one could easily get confused as to the actual meaning and/or message of a product or service.

No truer thing has been said of the CommodityPoint SourceBook series, our very successful series of guides for companies that are seeking to acquire CTRM software, services, or ancillary products, and for which we continue to be peppered with queries as to how valid a specific publication is to the particular vendor or consultant in question and/or which one they should be listed in.

If there is a single issue today that is bound to cause controversy and a reaction from our readers it has to be that of global warming. My past efforts at discussing this issue have always resulted in a lot of feedback from all sides of the debate. However, I want to tackle this topic again today as it impacts our industry significantly.

An UtiliPoint IssueAlert
Patrick Reames, Managing Director, CommodityPoint

The announcement last week that OpenLink Financial (OLF), one of the world’s largest CTRM solutions providers, had entered into an agreement to acquire their sometime rival (depending on the industry segment) SolArc has created quite a stir in the market. Though we’ve seen a couple of CTRM vendors change hands at the investor level in the last couple of months, including Hellman and Friedman buying into OLF, this new announcement reflects the largest acquisition of one vendor by another in this space for many years, and is a combining of two of the top five CTRM solution providers.

CommodityPoint is now the owner of the Energy Hedge Fund Center, a web portal initially created by Peter C. Fusaro and myself in 2004 (time flies!!) on the basis of a discussion we had about hedge funds in a bar in Las Vegas. I frankly didn’t know what a hedge fund was at the time but we had both noticed these mysterious and secretive entities had started to trade energy commodities. The first version of the EHFC site was built by me that weekend using a WYSIWG web development tool…..

CommodityPoint has launched a new research project, the 2011 CTRM Vendor Perception Survey. In this latest version of our biennial review of the market’s perceptions of trading and risk management applications and their vendors, we’re expanding our coverage beyond energy and are looking at all commodity trading applications.

So, we would really appreciate hearing your thoughts about, and experiences with, the various products and vendors that support energy and commodity trading activities around the globe.  The short electronic survey won’t take you long to complete and the final report will be freely available for you to check how your views match up with others.