Associate - Corporate Actions Analyst-1

Department overview

The IHS Markit now S&P Global Market Intelligence Managed Corporate Actions (MCA) service is a best-in-class centralized source of validated corporate action announcements. Managed Corporate Actions provides a centralized source of validated corporate action data for nearly three million equities, fixed income and structured securities, across more than 170 countries and territories. As financial firms face a deluge of raw information on corporate actions, the risks and costs associated with acquiring and managing this data is higher than ever. An investment decision based on poor data quality, in terms of both accuracy and timeliness, can have enormous ramifications, with potential exposure running into the millions of dollars.

Managed Corporate Actions provides unlimited access to corporate action data and allows clients to view full details in real time, including event-level data, dates, options, terms and conditions and restrictions. Managed Corporate Actions offer access to a variety of data vendors through our platform, allowing clients the flexibility to select the vendors they want to work with, which can provide them further control over data costs. The Managed Corporate Actions team validates data through an intricate and precise process of consolidating, researching and validating announcement information. Through this validation process, we enhance vendor records and resolve conflicting information to provide clients with a single golden corporate action record.

Managed Corporate Actions drives to reduce operational risk and lower cost of ownership through the provision of shared industry services for buy side and sell side firms, central banks, regulators, auditors and insurance companies.

Position summary

The Corporate Actions Data Operations team is responsible for corporate actions validation operations, customer support and new client onboarding, vendor management, quality control, and strategic support for new product initiatives.

The Corporate Actions validation Data Operations team monitors domestic and international corporate actions announcements from the point of notice of inception and conducts a stringent cleansing process. Managed Corporate Actions receives information from vendor feeds, and the global operations team of corporate actions experts researches and enriches records to produce validated corporate actions composite records for clients to pass notification on to their clients to take investment decisions and allocate entitlements that result from the event.

Key functions include research and analysis to correctly validate the accuracy of announcement publication initiated by information received from suppliers. This involves leveraging knowledge and expertise to determine the correct sources for the most comprehensive information, interfacing with agents, investor relations, and clients to investigate scenarios that are often unique and require significant investigation to reach a correct answer. The analyst role involves substantial contact with clients, who often request additional information and explanations from analysts around IHS Markit’s ( now S&P Global Market Intelligence ) decisions and guidance on how to handle and interpret specific corporate actions.

Duties & accountabilities
- Review corporate action announcements and conduct research to obtain details required to validate and complete announcements for publication of composite records to clients
- Conduct research leveraging various sources, including prospectuses, information circulars, exchanges and bulletins, internet search engines and websites in conjunction with individual comprehension to successfully validate corporate action information
- Interface with Domestic and Foreign Paying/Transfer/Information Agents, Vendors, Custodians, Banks, Exchange Officials, to obtain corporate action specifics
- Review and validate event notification received from agents against issuer golden copy
- Reconcile with issuer golden copy by directly liaising with custodians/agents
- Validate information for the clients as per the SWIFT messages received from the agents and ensuring notification is sent with all key dates, details, options deadlines and the options available for elections.
- Liaising with MO, agent banks, cash management and the counterparty to ensure all issues are resolved in a timely and efficient manner
- Escalate unresolved discrepancies to clients and escalation managers
- Review daily exception reports; research and resolve exceptions to ensure accurate outcome for clients to avoid risk of significant monetary penalties
- Collaborate with local leadership to identify training needs among the team, author training plans and documentation; deliver training to local team
- Contribute input to develop/modify procedures and controls
- Collaborate with local and global teams to improve procedures and identify and implement opportunities to realize efficiencies and improve