CadDo and Microsoft products bring transparency to asset management company’s portfolio

A fund and asset management company in the Netherlands with over €50 billion in assets under management wanted absolute transparency across every investment. This meant the company needed to augment financial performance figures with the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance for each investment fund, as well as all underlying holdings. The CadDo solution was implemented to deliver this rapidly and effectively, embedding the client’s extensive ESG knowledge, priorities, and preferences into a codified rules-based system. Using an end-to-end Microsoft stack, including Azure, SQL Server 2019, and Power BI, meant everything just connected and data flowed effectively from the client’s raw source data into beautiful end-user reports. The project has been a clear success in terms of its original scope, as the CadDo solution is now a single and verifiable source of truth for ESG data and insights.

Building assets while reducing carbon dioxide equivalent

A commitment to ethical and sustainable investing, in alignment with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), led the Dutch asset management company to impose strict fundamental principles that inform all of its investment decisions, including disclosing the carbon footprint of all of its investment funds. The company has committed to a 30 percent reduction in emissions by 2030, which has involved the complete removal of coal and mining from its funds.

An ambitious challenge and approach

The demand for transparency across investments, to align with the SDGs, meant the company needed to augment financial performance figures with ESG performance. This would ensure every investment decision would be fully informed, and that every retail and institutional client could gain a holistic view of each fund’s performance in terms of sustainability and profitability. The company was clear from the outset that it required a partner who could bridge the gap between IT and its business and rapidly deliver a solution to meet its internal deadline.

Based in London, CadDo provides data-driven insights and concentrated intelligence to organizations and individuals who care about sustainability as much as profitability. To meet the Dutch company’s needs, CadDo built a proof of concept within seven days. The scope covered all aspects of ESG and financial performance, with the focus on producing figures for CO2 emissions, water consumption, a singular ESG score, and the invested amounts. CadDo achieved this despite the complexity arising from the intricacies of funds investing in other funds.

The platform was built on Azure Virtual Machines running SQL Server Enterprise on Windows Server 2019. The stability of Windows Server complemented the computing power of SQL Server to create an unrivaled calculation engine. Then a reporting layer of SQL Server Analysis Services, also running on Azure VMs, was put in place to act as the resilient and responsive data source for Power BI end-user reports.

Measures of success

Having CadDo as a single and verifiable source of truth for ESG data informs the investment decision-making process and provides fund managers and investors with complete transparency. At the same time, the successful deployment of CadDo’s Azure-based metadata modeling has enabled:

More frequent and granular evaluation of fund makeup, highlighting ESG outliers and red flags.
Clearer communications between the company and its clients about fund and portfolio ESG and sustainability performance through online performance dashboards.
Fresh opportunities for the company in the realm of responsible investing, supporting other fund and asset managers looking for help with their own ESG strategies.