A NEW DAWN
FOR THE
BUY SIDE ?
Paul Squires , head of trading , AXA Investment Managers
These days , you could be forgiven for thinking that the public discussion around financial services is little more than a broken record , endlessly repeating debates on regulation and technological change . But behind the scenes , there is something much more interesting going on . Buy-side firms are busy building a new market model – one that rejects the previous paradigm which was largely built by the sell side . The platforms that evolved over the last 20 years increasingly seemed to favour participants that contributed high volumes , regardless of their impact on the market . However , the buy-side are now collaborating with the sell side and with trading venues to build services that genuinely aim to help the long-only asset manager trade in larger blocks . “ When I first started trading , any significant flows came from a merchant bank or major asset manager , who had the block liquidity you needed . Today , participants are much more varied and you are unlikely to know who you are transacting with ,” said Squires . Squires has an interesting story to tell .
8 www . buysideintel . com August 2016