OpenLink

OpenLink Wins Major Treasury Operation in Scandinavia

London, UK, June 18, 2001 — OpenLink, a leading provider of trading and risk management software to the financial and energy industries, announced today that BIRKA ENERGI AB, has selected OpenLink's Findur™ and Endur™ for their treasury and commodity operation in Sweden.

Birka, headquartered in Stockholm, will be using OpenLink's Findur Treasury product to provide integrated straight through processing (STP) in the front, middle and back office, for a range of products including money market, fixed income, derivatives and FX.  Leveraging OpenLink's Enterprise Platform, Birka will be using Findur in conjunction with Endur, OpenLink's comprehensive offering for energy and commodities. Birka will be trading power, crude and refined products through a thoroughly streamlined STP framework combined with extensive risk management.  Peter Cedgard, Risk Controller at Birka explained why they needed both Findur and Endur to meet their requirements, "Birka is the third largest producer of power in Sweden, but we also have a vast debt portfolio for our long term financing."

The cross-product range and flexibility that OpenLink provides both for the treasury and the commodity sides will enable Birka to have a truly integrated system.  When asked why Birka chose OpenLink, Cedgard said, "We looked into risk systems for the energy market. Our primary goal was to find a system that could satisfy our needs for STP from front to back for the financial and commodity markets. When we evaluated the products that OpenLink had to offer, we found that Findur also handles interest rate products; to get our interest rate instruments in the same system was a real bonus for us." 

From a risk perspective, Cedgard was also impressed with the functionality and the accuracy of the system. "Findur has accurate valuation of instruments. It can use VaR simulations, and calculate correlations and volatilities all within one system. There is also the possibility of real-time risk monitoring for both counterparty and market risk that we don't have available today, as currently our risk monitoring is end of day."  Access to improved risk management will enable Birka to make more informed trading decisions when faced with volatile market risks and changing credit exposures.

Jean-Claude Riss, managing director of OpenLink International, was delighted to win an important account such as Birka, "This was an important account for us as it is our first entry into the Scandinavian market." He was also pleased that they would leverage the full capabilities of Findur and Endur.  "Birka Energi will benefit from the true power of the system by incorporating all their trading activities within a single solution.  They will get enormous value from utilizing a common pricing/analytical engine, a common risk management framework, and a generic transaction-processing engine across all asset classes. OpenLink is the system supplier of choice for the leading players in the energy market, but many of our clients are major banks and corporates, where OpenLink has a far broader involvement in their treasury and capital markets arena."

About Birka Energi

Birka Energi was founded on 14 September 1998 and has become Sweden's third largest energy company in terms of production capacity. Birka is the leading energy company in terms of the number of customers. In addition to power sales, power distribution and power production, the group also includes the biggest heating business in Scandinavia.

Birka Energi's mission is to develop environmentally sound and sustainable energy systems and services for commercial as well as domestic use. Birka Energi interfaces with customers via two trademarks: HemEl for private customers and Birka Energi for commercial customers. The entire company is environmentally certified in accordance with ISO 14001.

About OpenLink

Since its founding in 1992, OpenLink has pioneered the development of complete and integrated commercial software solutions and services geared toward the world's most sophisticated financial and energy/commodities markets. OpenLink has grown steadily since its inception and is staffed today by more than 200 professionals, dedicated to serving its increasingly diverse customer base of financial institutions, banks, energy marketers, and corporate treasury departments. OpenLink Enterprise solution sets are fully integrated, real time, front-to-back office trading and risk management systems for fixed income, foreign exchange, money markets, energy and metals transactions. OpenLink is headquartered in New York, with offices in London and Houston.

Editorial Contact:

e-mail: Dorianne Landolphi
OpenLink
Marketing Communications Manager
Direct phone: +1 516 394 1115
Fax number: +1 516 394 1197