She takes up her new role after spending the last three years with State Street in several roles including as country head for Switzerland, working for its depository bank business in Germany, and overseeing the investment services business for the Netherlands, Austria and the Nordics. Prior to joining State Street in 2021, she previously served for more than 17 years at UBS across Zurich, London and Singapore and at Credit Suisse.

Start-up hedge fund Jain Global appointed a former Credit Suisse vice president and electronic sales trader to join its ranks on the trading desk ahead of its launch. Emily Facchina Fluet joined Jain as a trader working in London under head of EMEA trading, Jeremy Wyatt.

Fluet takes up her new role after serving at Credit Suisse for the last five and a half years, originally joining the bank in 2018 as an analyst. She later worked her way through the ranks in various electronic sales trading roles, landing her most recent vice president role covering advanced execution services (AES), algorithmic and direct market access (DMA) trading for the Asia Pacific markets in January last year. Fluet parted ways with Credit Suisse in November last year.

LSEG’s Continental European clearing house LCH SA appointed Marcus Robinson head of CDSClear and head of DigitalAssetClear. The move follows the departure of Frank Soussan, who previously served as global head of CDSClear and head of SA EquityClear and CommodityClear. Robinson – who previously served as head of strategy for LSEG Post Trade – will lead CDSClear as it enters the next phase of its international expansion, namely across the US, building upon the launch of client clearing to US firms in February.

Elsewhere in his tenure at LSEG, Robinson previously served as head of Asia Pacific for LCH. Before that, he was chief operating officer and director of business change at SwapClear. Prior to joining LCH, Robinson held roles within JP Morgan’s investment banking and asset management divisions and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s financial markets division.

Panmure Liberum expanded its US business with three new appointments to coincide with the newly combined business’ growth plans. Ed Husband and Hugo Hewitt joined the firm’s US sales team in New York and London, respectively.

Elsewhere, Arthur Pyott joined the firm’s sales trading desk and will split his time between New York and Florida. All three additions join from the former Numis US business. According to the firm, the hires add scale to Panmure Liberum’s coverage, enhancing its execution capabilities in the mid and large cap space, and allowing for more support of its clients’ growth ambitions.

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The move follows the departure of Frank Soussan, who previously served as global head of CDSClear and head of SA EquityClear and CommodityClear.

Robinson – who previously served as head of strategy for LSEG Post Trade – will lead CDSClear as it enters the next phase of its international expansion, namely across the US, building upon the launch of client clearing to US firms in February.

Additional responsibilities will include bringing to market DigitalAssetClear and its subsequent development, after recent regulatory approvals.

Robision will also join the LCH SA leadership team, reporting to Corentine Poilvet-Clédière, chief executive at LCH SA.

“I look forward to working with Marcus as we continue to build our multi-asset class offering and deliver new products and services across CDSClear and DigitalAssetClear, from LCH SA, the leading EU-based clearing house,” said Clediere.

“[Robinson] brings a great deal of experience to his new role having worked with the Group for 15 years, most recently as head of strategy for LSEG Post Trade.”

Elsewhere in his tenure at LSEG, Robinson previously served as head of Asia Pacific for LCH, establishing and leading the clearing service’s expansion within the region.

Before that, he was chief operating officer and director of business change at SwapClear, which LCH said made him suitable to lead CDSClear’s US expansion.

Prior to joining LCH, Robinson held roles within JP Morgan’s investment banking and asset management divisions and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s financial markets division.

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Clearing services will be provided through LCH SA’s new dedicated service, LCH DigitalAssetClear, for these contracts traded on the UK FCA regulated digital asset derivatives trading venue, GFO-X.

LCH SA stated that the offering has been developed with GFO-X in close consultation with market participants to ensure digital asset derivatives are traded and cleared through a service this is secure, highly regulated and focused on digital asset derivatives.

LCH DigitalAssetClear is underpinned by a segregated default fund, a unique risk management model and dedicated set of clearing rules.

LCH SA added that it is currently engaged with general clearing members, with plans to launch the clearing service later this year.

“We are pleased to have received regulatory approval to launch this innovative service which will enable institutional market participants to trade and clear cash-settled Bitcoin index futures and options within a regulated environment they are familiar with and which will allow them to benefit from LCH SA’s proven risk management capabilities,” said Corentine Poilvet-Clédière, chief executive at LCH SA.

“LCH SA is excited to be working with GFO-X, together with the industry, to provide a regulated marketplace for this asset class as we look to expand our services as a truly international clearing house.”

The new cash-settled Bitcoin index futures and options contracts will be cleared through LCH DigitalAssetClear and will be based on the GFO-X/Coin Metrics Single Asset Real-Time Bitcoin Index (GFOXBR).

The development will allow firms to trade futures and options on the Bitcoin reference index directly.

LCH DigitalAssetClear will operate a fully segregated clearing service, including a segregated default fund and a dedicated set of clearing rules, for market participants clearing these instruments.

Members and clients using LCH DigitalAssetClear will also be able to leverage LCH SA’s risk mitigation, settlement, netting and margin efficiencies with a regulated environment.

“LCH DigitalAssetClear’s regulatory approval is a significant step in delivering a dedicated trading and clearing services targeted towards institutional adoption of this growing asset class,” said Arnab Sen, chief executive at GFO-X.

“Banks and institutional have been clear as to their demands for accessing this market and our joint solution delivers on their requirements.”

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Founded in 2010, GLMX facilitates dealer to buy-side securities finance trading with over $1.7 trillion in daily balances.

The firm has a network consisting of over 115 global clients as well as more than 20 third part OMS/EMS and industry utility, including Triparty agent and central clearing counterparty connections.

“Central clearing reduces capital costs, mitigates credit risk and generates liquidity, which are essential characteristics for securities finance participants. The importance of central clearing will continue to grow in light of the current global regulatory landscape,” said Glenn Havlicek, chief executive of GLMX.

“Our connection to LCH SA’s powerful central clearing capability is an important step as GLMX establishes itself as the nexus of deep liquidity pools for our rapidly growing European buy- and sell-side network.”

Earlier this year, Euronext entered into a definitive agreement to sell its 11% stake in LCH SA back to LCH Group for €111 million. The move contributed towards Euronext’s ongoing migration of its clearing business back into the Bloc and onto its own clearing house, Euronext Clearing.

Elsewhere, LCH SA entered into a strategic partnership with Institutional-grade digital assets trading venue GFO-X to launch the UK’s first centrally cleared trading venue for derivatives in this space.

“We are pleased to establish a partnership with GLMX Technologies as we look to support mutual members’ and clients’ access to both classic and sponsored clearing,” said Olivier Nin, head of RepoClear and Calm Risk.

“Through this integration, buy-side members can enjoy the benefits and gain greater access to the world’s largest Euro liquidity pool whilst banks can leverage enhanced netting opportunities, operational efficiencies, and alleviate balance sheet pressures.”

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Poilvet-Clédière will assume the role on 1 October, subject to regulatory approvals.

She will replace Christophe Hémon, who confirmed he would be stepping down as chief executive of LCH SA on 1 October – when Poilvet-Clédière assumes the role – after nearly two decades in office.

Poilvet-Clédière brings over 15 years’ experience in financial markets to the role. She currently serves as head of RepoClear and collateral management at LCH SA.

Before that, Poilvet-Clédière served as global head of regulatory strategy at LSEG, where she engaged on various strategic policy issues, particularly in post-trade.

Prior to this, she was a member of the team involved in the launch of CDSClear as governance manager at LCH SA. Elsewhere in her career, Poilvet-Clédière held positions at EY Financial Services and BNP Paribas in New York.

In her new role, Poilvet-Clédière will report to Daniel Maguire, head of post-trade at LSEG and chief executive of LCH Group.

“Corentine is a prime example of the importance LSEG places on internal mobility and progression, whereby talent is able to grow, flourish, adapt, and develop to meet the Group’s business needs,” said Maguire.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Christophe for his distinguished service and leadership. As a great leader and a valued colleague, I wish Christophe all the best as he embarks on his next chapter.”

Poilvet-Clédière’s appointment follows the news that institutional-grade digital assets trading venue GFO-X entered into a strategic partnership with LCH SA to launch the UK’s first centrally cleared trading venue for derivatives in this space.

Scheduled to launch in Q4, GFO-X will offer trading in cash-settled BTC index futures and options, while the pair will provide clearing on cash-settled digital asset index derivatives.

“I’m honoured to be leading LCH SA, and I look forward to working with the team in Paris and the wider LSEG post-trade team to deliver more innovation and efficiencies to our customers and the markets we serve,” said Poilvet-Clédière. 

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At launch, GFO-X will offer trading in cash-settled BTC index futures and options.

The pair  will provide clearing on cash-settled digital asset index derivatives.

According to GFO-X, the firm will be taking the first steps to extract efficiencies from new technologies within a traditional market structure, with the goal of delivering 24/7 trading to global regulated digital asset markets. 

The launch is currently scheduled for Q4 2023, subject to completion of LCH SA regulatory approvals.

“Bitcoin index futures and options are a rapidly growing asset class, with increasing interest among institutional market participants looking for access within a regulated environment they are familiar with,” said Frank Soussan, head of LCH DigitalAssetClear.

“Offering centralised clearing for these cash-settled dollar-denominated crypto derivatives contracts on GFO-X is an important development for the market.”

GFO-X and LCH SA stated that they have been working with an advisory group comprising investment banks, trading firms and liquidity providers to optimise product design and risk methodologies.

“Recent market events in the trading of digital assets have highlighted the need for a safe, regulated venue where large financial institutions can trade at scale, while keeping their clients’ assets protected,” said Arnab Sen, chief executive and co-founder of GFO-X.

“As the UK’s first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue focused entirely on digital asset futures and options, our joint vision is to ensure digital asset derivatives’ trading and clearing requirements and growing demand can be met within a secure, highly regulated environment.” 

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Euronext moved to break off its 10-year deal – originally due to expire in 2027 – with LCH SA in November after announcing its plans to move its clearing operations to Italy. The move followed its acquisition of Borsa Italiana and the bourse’s clearing house CC&G – now rebranded to Euronext Clearing.

Currently, Euronext Clearing only clears for Euronext Milan, however, the exchange operator has confirmed plans to expand coverage to all of its venues, subject to regulatory approval, meaning it will replace LCH SA as the primary CCP for Euronext’s markets.

The exchange operator is looking to migrate its cash equities business to Euronext Clearing by the end of next year, The TRADE understands. The first termination window for the listed derivatives LCH SA contract is in January 2023 with a one-year notice and a six-month migration period meaning the first time Euronextcan migrate these flows will be June 2024.

When cash equities flow migrates at the end of the year, LCH SA will ask for a preferred clearing link to Euronext markets, The TRADE understands. However, EuroCCP who has also had a clearing relationship with Euronext since 2017, is also gearing up to become the exchange operator’s preferred clearing partner of choice.

LCH SA and EuroCCP will therefore be in direct competition with one another to win the business of the some of the largest markets in the Bloc.

“It’s a matter of winning the battle in market share,” said one source familiar with the matter.

The preferred clearing model allows a CCP to connect to a trade feed at an exchange for a fee. Both EuroCCP and LCH SA intend to offer their services to Euronext in this capacity, however, it is widely known that using multiple preferred clearing houses makes it harder to gain market share as the preferred CCP must have been selected by both the buyer and the seller to oversee a transaction. When this does not occur, the primary CCP assumes responsibility for it.

“Before Mifir and Mifid II, some venues wouldn’t necessarily open up trade feeds to preferred clearing houses because they most likely owned a CCP that’s in a vertical silo. What preferred clearing allows us to do is get access to that venue – albeit we don’t interoperate with the primary CCP,” EuroCCP’s head of commercial and business development, Tim Beckwith, told The TRADE.

“This reduces the probability of a cleared transaction because you need lots and lots of clearing members to join in for the service.”

EuroCCP claims to have seen 233% growth on its cleared volumes across the Euronext markets in Paris, Amsterdam, Lisbon and Milan, reaching 15 million transactions this year to date and with plans to grow this number further.

However, with so many Euronext clearing members already connected to LCH SA on the back of its multi-year deal – it currently claims to oversee 90% of Euronext’s total clearing market share  – continuation and consolidation could play into the hands of LSEG’s Paris based clearing house.

LCH SA and Euronext declined to comment.

Brexit significantly fragmented the clearing landscape and UK-based CCPs have subsequently continued to grapple with EU regulators over their equivalence in the last few years. Originally granted an 18-month temporary equivalence post-Brexit due to expire in June, LCH, ICE Clear Europe and LME Clearing were all awarded another temporary three-year equivalence earlier this year, due to expire in June 2025.

The move was designed to reduce European institutions’ reliance on them without a cliff edge deadline and is expected to impact the market share of UK-based CCPs.

“As a result of that [temporary equivalence] banks were looking at the risk of having EU clearing with a UK CCP and the impact it could have had on interoperability,” added Beckwith. “They’re trying to de-risk that migration by moving flow to us now and we believe that’s one of the key elements of our preferred clearing growth.”

According to Euronext’s first quarter results, Euronext Clearing revenues reached €2 million for derivatives, €5 million for equities and just over €2 million for bonds.

Its future market share and revenues are dependent on whoever is left standing between LCH SA and EuroCCP. As both clearing houses throw their hats into the ring, there’s just one question that remains, who will participants prefer?

Update – Please note that the 233% growth figure referenced by EuroCCP represents an increase in its market share (based on daily traded volumes) on Euronext markets in Amsterdam, Brussels, Lisbon and Paris from 2% at the start of the year to an estimated 17.87% as of 22 July, 2022, based on Cboe Global Markets data.

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Using EquityClear, customers trading on these venues and those reporting on BXTR can clear, net and settle trades at LCH SA alongside equities traded on Cboe UK, Turquoise Europe and Turquoise UK.

Through the use of EquityClear’s preferred CCP clearing model, users can choose to clear through LCH SA if both of the trade’s counterparties have elected LCH SA as their preferred CCP.

Allowing European euro-denominated securities traded on these venues to be cleared at LCH SA will offer market participants considerable margin, settlement and clearing cost efficiencies, LSEG said, while also supporting the development of liquidity in European equities markets.

“Through our Paris-based clearing house, EquityClear SA is focused on ensuring our customers continue to benefit from the largest pool of liquidity in cleared European equities,” said Ivan Gilmore, head of cash equities at LCH Ltd and SA.

“These new connections are part of our strategy to expand the trading venues available to our clearing members. Increasing the options for our customers of where they trade and clear enables greater opportunities for capital and operational efficiencies.”

The expansion follows record clearing volumes achieved by LCH in 2021, which were a result of building new connectivity and an increase of services provided.

EquityClear, in particular, set a new annual record in 2021, registering 1.9 billion trades, and connecting to additional central securities depositories (CSDs) in Austria and Italy.

“We’re pleased to be able to offer our customers the ability to clear at LCH’s Paris-based EquityClear service,” said Jonathan Clelland, chief executive of Aquis Exchange Europe.

“Expanding the clearing opportunities for products traded on our market supports our customers with greater access to the benefits of clearing.”

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LCH has extended the scope of its buy-side repo clearing model, RepoClear, to include clearing of Euro debt.

Buy-side users of the RepoClear model can now clear across 13 Euro debt markets and LCH’s tri-party basket repo clearing service, €GCPlus, and at LCH SA, its continental Europe clearing house, building on the scheme originally launched in 2017. 

The clearinghouse confirmed that Tradeweb had become the first trading venue to offer access to the sponsored model at LCH SA.

The sponsored model is based on open access and allows buy-side firms to access RepoClear via sponsorship whereby an agent bank provides them with support including facilitating margin payments and providing default fund contributions for transactions.

LCH recently extended the list of buy-side firms eligible for the RepoClear sponsored clearing model in June, adding regulated investment funds, including authorised designated investment companies, unit trusts, and common contractual funds to the list.

“This model will enable us to offer an even broader clearing solution for our clients, who are now able to access LCH-cleared euro government bonds,” said Nicky Parsons, head of product for fixed income prime brokerage, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) at Societe Generale. 

“This is also a positive risk management move: diversifying the members of the CCP and increasing the capacity of the repo market, more generally.”

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Since the migration five new members are now clearing listed equity derivatives contracts for Norwegian single stocks and indexes on Oslo Børs, LCH said.

Other members of LCH SA’s listed derivatives clearing service can now extend their existing memberships to include trading activity at Oslo Børs, with two existing members already signed up.

“We’re delighted to be extending our relationship with Euronext to offer clearing for Oslo Børs derivatives market,” said Christophe Hémon, CEO of LCH SA. “This is a significant step for us as we continue to expand the number of products and trading venues available to our clearing members.”

Euronext, which acquired Oslo Børs last year, has been migrating the exchange’s trading operations to its proprietary trading platform Optiq since 2019. In November, it confirmed that it had successfully migrated Oslo Børs cash equities, structured products, and exchange traded funds (ETFs) market operations.

“LCH SA has a strong track record in providing the market with robust risk management solutions across a range of products. Connecting to LCH will support the growth of our membership base, by on-boarding a more diverse set of member firms,” said Øivind Amundsen, CEO of Oslo Børs.

Amundsen was appointed CEO of Oslo Børs in January after serving as Euronext’s head of listings for Norway and international listings since the acquisition completed.

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