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BMI research results in the founding of a new company

The Centre for Business Mathematics and Informatics® (BMI) recently negotiated an agreement to form a consortium with the newly founded company S-Software design. According to the agreement the Johannesburg-based company S-Software design will be able to deliver services to industry based on the UltimateAlpha system.

The UltimateAlpha system is the brain child of Prof Dawie de Jongh who is professor in Financial Mathematics at the Centre for BMI on the Potchefstroom Campus of the North West University.

Here is Mr Thys Steynberg (S-Software design), Prof Dawie de Jongh (Founder: Centre for BMI) and Willem Booysen (NWU-Puk Legal Advisor). In front are Mrs Hanlie Steynberg (S-Software Design), Prof Riaan de Jongh (Director Centre for BMI) and Ms Elani Engelbrecht (NWU-Puk Legal Advisor).

The UltimateAlpha system is aimed at assisting large fund managers in analysing the performance of their trading strategies and decisions. By using the system, fund managers can also evaluate the performance of brokers executing their trading instructions. Fund managers can now send their trading data to S-Software design who will analyse the data using the Ultimate Alpha system as well as the Centre for BMI’s intra day data base (BMI IDDB). The BMI IDDB contains a 3-year history of the trade-by-trade data of all shares on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. The results of this analysis are then transported to a secured M-Web server from which it may be viewed on the web.

The UltimateAlpha system is the result of a research project funded amongst others by the Department of Trade and Industry’s THRIP initiative. The ideas of prof Dawie de Jongh was programmed by Mrs Hanlie Steynberg and this collaboration led to the founding of the company S-Software design in August 2006. Because S-Software design is the result of commercialisation of research from a project funded by THRIP and Absa it may be regarded as a THRIP spinoff company.

According to the director of the Centre for BMI, Prof Riaan de Jongh, the UltimateAlpha system is a resounding success. “The consortium has already signed contracts with SIM (Sanlam Investment Management), STANLIB, OLD MUTUAL and POLARIS CAPITAL and negotiations with a number of other fund managers are showing great promise. Signing the agreement with S-Software design is a major achievement because it represents BMI’s first research project resulting in succesful commercialisation.”

The Centre for BMI negotiated contracts to the value of more than R25 million rand in the 2005/2006 financial year. This include two contracts with Absa, a contract with the international software company SAS Institute as well as specific project related contracts with Standard Bank and the Bond Exchange of South Africa.