Prime Brokerage: Basics

A prime broker is a firm (for example, an investment bank or broker/dealer) that provides a bundle of services to institutional clients, such as hedge funds, managed funds, and other money managers. Services provided by the prime broker include trade execution, settlement and custody, margin financing of trades, and lending securities for short sale. The objective of a prime broker is to present itself to its clients as a centralized office through which many of the client's portfolio-related transactions can be made. we We learn about the history of prime brokers and explore the needs of different customers for prime brokers these days.