The firm has also added Virtu Financial as an executing broker for client flows negotiated on Appital’s BookBuilder platform, offering buy-side participants improved options for executing large orders. 

Virtu Financial offers execution, liquidity sourcing, analytics, and workflow technology for institutional clients, including POSIT MTF, its dark multilateral trading facility in Europe and the UK. 

This latest development follows the integration of Virtu Financial’s Triton Valor EMS with Appital’s BookBuilder platform in April last year.

“Our collaboration with Virtu Financial was driven by client demand and provides asset managers with price discovery and execution capabilities in outsized equity positions, within a seamless workflow,” said Brian Guckian, chief business development officer at Appital.

The collaborations with Virtu Financial’s POSIT MTF and its execution services complement existing integrations with Turquoise MTF and executing brokers Instinet and Bernstein, the firm said in a statement.

“We aim to help institutional clients discover quality liquidity while maintaining anonymity and minimising market impact,” said Rob Boardman, chief executive at Virtu Execution Service, EMEA.

“We do this by leveraging cutting-edge technology to deliver liquidity to the global markets and innovative, transparent trading solutions to our clients.”

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Named Price Discovery in Appital Insights, the tool allows buy-side users to invite select feedback on live orders in order gain insights on potential pricing and volume before committing an order to a bookbuild or before launching a bookbuild themselves.

Through the expanded workflow, Appital claims its clients can unlock latent liquidity. If sufficient demand is captured in price discovery following buy-side invitations for feedback, then the information flows anonymously back to the originator to launch a bookbuild. Liquidity is subsequently realised.

Buy-side traders retain control over how and when they interact with liquidity, said Appital, while portfolio managers can also respond to price discovery processes without generating an order in their EMS.

Appital said the new uncommitted order types during price discovery would “reduce bookbuild duration while increasing the likelihood of its success”.

“With Price Discovery in Appital Insights we are digitising yet another step in the high-touch trading mechanism while also minimising risk of information leakage and price erosion,” said Mark Badyra, chief executive at Appital.

“This aligns with our strategy to deliver unique workflows to trading and investment teams. I believe that illiquidity issues can be solved globally by bringing technological innovation into the equity market and providing distinctive functionality to the buy-side. With Price Discovery in Appital Insights, firms are able to generate orders that would otherwise not exist, resulting in increased deal flows and liquidity events.”

Appital officially launched Appital Insights in September last year. The initiative allows buy-side institutions to assess how viable the execution of larger average daily volume (ADV) orders will be without the risk of information leakage or price erosion.

Traders and portfolio managers can also access exposure to liquidity events in relevant equities meeting their minimum ADC or pricing thresholds.

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FactSet Portware EMS has also made a new functionality available, ‘Live Watchlist’, allowing buy-side institutions to assess the viability of executing larger ADV orders without alerting the market.

Appital Insights went live in September 2023, helping unlock liquidity unavailable through traditional electronic trading venues. The offering allows buy-side traders and portfolio managers to gain exposure to liquidity events in relevant equities that meet their minimum average daily volume (ADV) or pricing thresholds, alongside being able to execute large or illiquid equity trades before entering the market via Appital Turquoise BookBuilder.

Read more: Appital launches new initiative to help buy-side unlock liquidity

“Portware clients will benefit from a synchronised and dynamic update of their ‘Live Watchlist’ in Appital, allowing them to assess the viability of executing larger ADV orders without risking information leakage or price erosion,” said Mark Badrya, chief executive of Appital.

“Asset managers expose orders to Appital Insights without fear of signalling to the market because there is no matching or execution at this level of platform interaction. They know that Appital Insights does not impact ‘on-screen’ prices and they retain full control of the order.”

According to the business, 40 asset managers with more than $15 trillion AUM are now signed up –  with over 60 in the onboarding stage – up from 22 asset managers in August 2023, when Appital Insights was first launched.

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Appital appointed John Coules to its business development team following 17 years at HSBC, most recently as a pan European equity sales trader. Coules has more than 30 years of experience in client-facing sales trading. He previously spent 12 years at Lehman Brothers, also as an equity sales trader. Speaking to The TRADE, Coules said: “I am very excited to join Mark, Brian and the team at Appital to further the ambitions of the platform. Exciting times ahead!”

StoneX Group appointed Simon Pickworth as an institutional fixed income trader for the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEEMEA) region. Pickworth previously served at MUFG for 13 years, most recently as executive director for the firm’s CEEMEA trading desk. Before joining MUFG, he held an emerging markets fixed income trading role at BNP Paribas, responsible for Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Africa and South Africa flow trading. Earlier in his career, Pickworth served as a junior syndicate desk manager and traders assistant at Paribas, prior to its merger with Banque Nationale de Paris.

BIDS Trading appointed Brian Hickey senior director of product. Hickey previously served as head of product at LedgerEdge for nearly a year and a half, prior to the trading platform closing down last year. Prior to joining LedgerEdge, Hickey spent nearly 14 years at State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) in various senior positions. Most recently, he served as head of cross-asset electronic trading, a position he held for just over three years. Elsewhere during his tenure at SSGA, Hickey was vice president across various positions, including as a senior alternatives trader, credit trader and senior equity trader. Before joining SSGA, he served as an international equity trader at Putnam Investments.

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Coules has more than 30 years of experience in client-facing sales trading. He previously spent 12 years at Lehman Brothers, also as an equity sales trader 

He joins Appital at a time when the business is experiencing significant growth, reaching $4.0bn of buyside liquidity since the launch of Appital Insights in September 2023.

In an announcement, Brian Guckian, chief business development officer at Appital, asserted: “I am delighted to welcome John to the Appital team at such an exciting time for the business. Since we launched Appital Insights in Q4 2023, Appital has gone from strength to strength […] John’s experience will be invaluable as we continue our global expansion.” 

Appital further explained that Coules’ deep understanding of how equity markets operate was a key factor in the appointment. 

He is set to support the Appital team with “building and deepening buy-side relationships in the UK, Europe and beyond,” The TRADE understands.

Read more: Appital launches new initiative to help buy-side unlock liquidity

Speaking to his appointment, Coules said: “Having worked in sales trading for more than three decades I have seen first-hand how the industry has changed. Today, more than ever, access to hard-to-find liquidity in a market for size, without the risk of information leakage, is a significant challenge.

“Appital’s peer-to-peer price discovery and liquidity-sourcing technology is truly unique and redefines how buy-side firms engage to unlock latent liquidity. I look forward to working with the Appital team to support their international growth ambitions.”

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Named Appital Insights, the initiative allows buy-side institutions to assess how viable the execution of larger ADV orders will be without the risk of information leakage or price erosion.

Traders and portfolio managers will also be able to access exposure to liquidity events in relevant equities meeting their minimum ADC or pricing thresholds.

“What asset managers care about – and we have discussed this with them in the process of developing Appital Insights – is to have a peer to peer discovery and liquidity sourcing ability that is integrated with their EMS providers and that does not alert the market,” Mark Badrya, chief executive of Appital, told The TRADE.

“They want full control on every stage of the order lifecycle. They want real time feedback on the orders on their pad and the ability to react and source liquidity in any relevant stock. This is what we have created with Appital Insights.”

The initiative builds upon existing bookbuilding capabilities available through Appital Turquoise Bookbuilder, which has integrated a highly manual and opaque process into a more automated, electronic platform – as well as the ability to execute large volumes on Turquoise MTF.

Appital Insights offers real-time, origination alerts to tap cross-border deal flow opportunities for buy-side users, ahead of any price formation or deal launches.

The initiative holds data which produces automated feedback on live positions as well as the probability of driving liquidity in relevant names – offering traders and PMs the ability to find deal contras before they proceed to launch a bookbuild.

Appital Insights connects directly to a trader’s EMS, allowing them to receive automated feedback on how to source liquidity for the orders on their desk.

“We have all witnessed venue fragmentation and a decline in block liquidity, with shrinking order sizes and exposure to predatory trading behaviour,” said Matt Jefford, head of liquidity solutions at Appital.

“However, true block liquidity still resides with the buy-side. This is the unique liquidity we are unlocking with Appital Insights. 

The post Appital launches new initiative to help buy-side unlock liquidity appeared first on The TRADE.

Named Appital Turquoise BookBuilder, the solution is an algorithmic bookbuilding platform which brings a typically manual and opaque process into an automated, electronic offering.

Launched in August last year, the platform gives buy-side clients greater exposure to previously inaccessible, cross-border deal flow opportunities, alongside allowing like-minded market participants to interact in the liquidity discovery and price formation process.

The integration of Virtu Financial’s Valor EMS will allow buy-side firms to receive Appital liquidity opportunities directly into their workflows and trading infrastructure.

“Part of the investment process is to be able to access and proactively drive liquidity in the market. In the current electronic environment there are liquidity opportunities. But because the average order size is smaller than in Appital, it does not spark internal conversations between PM and trader,” Mark Badyra, chief executive of Appital, told The TRADE.

“In Appital, the opportunity is much larger, multiple days ADV. This drives active conversations between PM and trader that directly impact the investment decisions. In other words, price formation takes place. Finding the right price for the right order size is what Appital is for.” 

Virtu Financial’s Triton integration becomes the latest development from Appital which has seen similar moves from other EMS providers. Last year, both TS Imagine and FactSet’s Portware EMS integrated with Appital ahead of its official launch in August.

“Our clients are always looking for new and innovative ways to seek out liquidity. Appital allows them to interact with like-minded institutions in a market for size,” said Melissa Ellis, head of European workflow sales at Virtu Financial.

“By integrating with Appital, asset managers are now able to access liquidity that would otherwise be latent and initiate a bookbuilding process, adding value to their overall investment processes.” 

The post Virtu Financial becomes latest EMS provider to integrate with Appital’s bookbuilding platform appeared first on The TRADE.

Mark Badyra, chief executive officer at Appital:

Mack Gill, chief operating officer, Torstone Technology: The events of the past 12 months have reinforced the necessity of modern architecture for market participants. While many expected a potential slowdown in technology adoption as we emerged from the pandemic, it’s clear that banks and brokers remain laser focused on leveraging new technology solutions. More specifically, we expect the benefits of cloud technology to continue to shine throughout 2023, especially in post-trade, as the flexibility and scalability that cloud offers is vital for firms to get their operational ducks in a row ahead of the incoming T+1 settlement cycle. Any firms that rely on legacy technology, or inefficient manual processes, will face extreme difficulty in keeping up with the market. The industry has evolved from seeing modern, automated solutions as a ‘nice to have’ to a core business requirement. Looking forward to 2023, we expect more use of SaaS as firms are keen to simplify and streamline their systems, particularly in the post-trade space.

Andy Mahoney, managing director, EMEA, FlexTrade Systems: As predicted in The TRADE’s 2022 edition, this year has seen the emergence of electronic liquidity providers moving up the food chain into the buy-side trading desktop, allowing users to interact with actionable liquidity directly, be it SI, CRB or MTF. 2023 will see a further advancement to democratise liquidity, where the buy-side, with appropriate technology, can begin to control and automate their interaction with execution avenues previously only available through a sell-side relationship. With direct access to these new liquidity sources, the importance of technology to ingest, aggregate, and analyse this new data alongside traditional sources will be paramount. As the new, democratic liquidity landscape emerges, we will likely see the advent of the buy-side smart order router, which ingests multiple liquidity sources, placing orders on the buy-side’s terms.

Enrico Bruni, head of Europe and Asia, Tradeweb: As we head into 2023, I’m thinking about the key trends that will shape the next generation of electronic trading. I expect to see a real push for more innovation in trading and we see this especially when it comes to automation. There is more demand for intelligent tools that support execution, whether it’s in automating workflows or trade execution, and we expect this trend to continue in 2023, especially as our clients embrace new technology. Another important trend we’ll see more of next year is about connectivity, in a wider sense. The industry is putting greater emphasis on linking markets across asset classes and workflows. Traders should be able to link and trade across different asset classes seamlessly, for example in rates products, executing asset swaps packages (e.g. government bonds vs interest rate swaps). A greater level of interoperability will deliver greater scale in 2023. Finally, we believe there is still a significant opportunity to fill the white spaces within the existing marketplace. There are still markets which have resisted electronification, specifically repo where digitisation in the dealer-to-client space has remained low. As we introduce new solutions to cater for more complex workflows and risk transfer, electronification will become inevitable and a greater number of markets will electronify and come online in the next 12 to 24 months. 

Ray Tierney, president, Broadridge Trading and Connectivity Solutions: The digital transformation journey that capital markets firms are on begins with the integration of digital technology into all areas of a business, fundamentally changing how individuals operate and deliver value to customers. In Broadridge’s recent Next-Gen Technology Adoption Survey, nearly half (49%) of respondents described investing in innovative technologies as important to their company’s strategic transformation. Implementing next-generation technologies brings significant financial and strategic benefits to firms, and we’re only going to see firms accelerate investments in these areas as we head into the new year. We are seeing large volumes of data become more readily available and easily accessible.

This will help to fuel the effectiveness of these new disruptive technologies and will also allow firms to accurately measure how their investments are helping to reduce operating costs. Big data won’t just get bigger, it will get smarter. This transformation requires a cultural change, one that enables organisations to continually challenge the status quo, experiment, and get comfortable with failure. I believe that this is one of the biggest challenges that firms need to overcome in the next 12 months, and it’s positive to see that some traditional players are starting to make that shift. Next year, expect to see the appetite continuing to grow for firms to acquire or partner with technology vendors to enhance their client engagement and experience as they seek to differentiate themselves from their competitors.

Steve Collie, co-founder and co-head of client delivery, FINBOURNE Technology: The pace at which these investment trends are moving, along with the need to deliver on-demand client reporting has equally fuelled the need for scalable, cloud-native solutions that can deliver elasticity. This will necessitate a Modern Financial Data Stack that can deliver firms with a real-time, financial data repository, consolidating and translating multi-asset class transactions, market and reference data, in the public cloud. The industry will also need to explore SaaS capabilities including bitemporality, a critical component when it comes to pricing and measuring risk across the emerging digital asset space, enabling firms and their clients to see their data across two timelines. Bitemporality is essential to delivering an improved risk profile and reduced exposure, offering deeper insights into trading patterns, for future cryptocurrency transactions. As we have seen, cryptocurrencies are not immune to bubble risk, so the ability to manage exposure in real-time is not only a necessity but could also minimise the need to sell-off real assets and cover margins. 

The post The TRADE predictions series 2023: Technology, part two appeared first on The TRADE.

Graham O’Mahony, partner at hedge fund turned family office, Adelphi Capital, left the firm for a head of trading role at Davide Leone & Partners. O’Mahony departed Adelphi Capital after nearly 13 years. Prior to joining Adelphi Capital in 2010, O’Mahony spent two and a half years as a trader at Metage Capital.

Bookbuilding platform Appital appointed Matthew Jefford as head of liquidity solutions. Jefford brings more than 30 years’ experience in global financial markets to the firm, particularly in equities, equity derivatives and fixed income. Before joining Appital, he served as an electronic sales trader at ICAP and prior to that, held sales, electronic and trading positions at Liquidnet, Bloomberg Tradebook and Instinet, covering clients in the EMEA region.

Rounding up our people moves update, last week Tuesday, Berenberg cut over 50 jobs in its London office. The layoffs follow an initial round of cuts in its London office over the summer, as well as two rounds of New York reductions which have seen its US headcount streamline by around 50%. Berenberg is aiming to cut $1.4 billion in costs by 2024, and the latest round of cuts will contribute to this goal. In addition, these job cuts come on the back of one of the worst years ever for deal-making, which has seen various banks cutting bonuses as they struggle to keep their investment arms above water. 

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As part of the role, Jefford will help accelerate Appital’s growth strategy, with a focus on deepening platform liquidity for asset managers alongside aiding the firm with bringing innovation and automation to equity markets.

Jefford brings more than 30 years’ experience in global financial markets to the firm, particularly in equities, equity derivatives and fixed income.

Before joining Appital, he served as an electronic sales trader at ICAP and prior to that, held sales, electronic and trading positions at Liquidnet, Bloomberg Tradebook and Instinet, covering clients in the EMEA region.

“I am thrilled to welcome Matthew to the Appital team. His industry insights and equity markets expertise are invaluable as we implement our vision to bring technological innovation, efficiency and transparency to equity markets and unlock latent liquidity for investors,” said Mark Badyra, chief executive of Appital.

Jefford’s appointment follows a recent £1.7 million investment secured by Appital from Frontline Ventures and several other angel investors, to bring technological innovation and automation to equity markets. The latest investment follows a £2.5 million funding round last year, which brings the total investment raised to date to £4.85 million.

“There is a clear need in the equity market space to access deal flow opportunities and I look forward to working with the Appital team to make our capabilities available to the wider buyside community,” said Jefford. 

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