THETRADETECH DA I LY
PEOPLE MOVES
The director of the capital markets
segment at the London Stock Exchange
Group is due to step down from his
position by the end of the year. Raffaele
Jerusalmi announced his intentions to
step down from the role but will continue
to lead Borsa Italiana in his current role
as CEO. Jerusalmi will also remain an
executive director of the board of LSEG,
and a member of the exchange group’s
executive committee.
news
THE OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER OF TRADETECH 2019
Trading venues
Conditional orders
and periodic auctions
on top post-MiFID II
Continued from front page.
Tim Throsby, the head of Barclays
investment bank, has departed the
organisation less than two years after
taking on the role. Having joined Barclays
from JP Morgan in April 2017, Throsby will
be replaced as chief executive of Barclays
International (the legal business housing
the bank’s corporate and investment
bank unit) by Barclays Group CEO, Jes
Staley, on an interim basis. Simultane-
ously, Ashok Vaswani, currently the chief
executive of Barclays UK, will become
global head of consumer banking and
payments, a newly created role.
Blockchain technology specialist Digital
Asset has appointed one of its co-found-
ers to CEO to replace Blythe Masters,
who stepped down at the end of 2018.
Yuval Rooz, who helped set up the
company in 2014, was previously chief
operating officer (COO) where he hired
the majority of Digital Asset’s execu-
tive leadership, established its global
presence and oversaw the acquisition
of four technology start-ups. Rooz also
helped establish its strategic partnership
with the Australian Securities Exchange
(ASX), which is using Digital Asset’s
technology to revamp its post-trade
systems.
The global equities business at JP Mor-
gan has bolstered its senior manage-
ment team with the appointment of
a new head of global volatility. Rachid
Alauoi will take on the role overseeing
the equities trading businesses across
flow, exotics and non-linear corporate de-
rivatives segments. Alauoi has been with
JP Morgan for the past 14 years in various
roles across the derivatives trading team,
most recently as head of EMEA equities
exotics and index flow trading.
6
THETRADETECH DAILY
(ESMA) extensive research on periodic auctions
revealed that the majority of trading firms
oppose any further regulatory intervention on the
venues.
At the same time, the research from WBR
Insights also found a majority of 76% of senior
traders agreed that conditional order types have
become the most important trading strategy
for navigating liquidity post-MiFID II, followed
closely by algo wheels and liquidity-aggregating
algorithms.
Conditional orders have risen in popularity in
response to MiFID II’s limitations of dark trading.
They allow firms to trade as usual, but when an
opportunity to trade a large block arises, it can
withdraw other orders allowing traders to take
advantage of the large-in-scale (LIS) waiver.
“What’s clear here is not necessarily what order
types are more frequently used (although it’s no
surprise to see conditional orders top of the tree)
but, the fact that the vast majority of partici-
pants have actually changed the way they trade
in order to comply with best execution require-
ments, and make best use of the tools available
to them to source fragmented liquidity,” Salvador
Rodriguez, head of electronic trading at Instinet
Europe, commented on the results.
MiFID II has also caused a shift in buy- and
sell-side relationships, with WBR Insights’ report
revealing that just 5% of respondents have not
materially changed the brokers that they use. On
the other hand, a significant 63% of senior trad-
ers said that they have now taken more routing
and best execution decisions in-house.
“The ownership to the buy-side is evident with
the results here. In particular, routing decisions
has been the priority,” Susie Benaim, TradeTech
Europe conference director, commented. “Given
the development of smarter algos and better
SORs (smart order routers), the ability to monitor
these more complex trades has improved as well
as the reporting ownership heightened.”
Technology
Deutsche Börse acquires analytics provider
Axioma for $850 million
E
xchange operator Deutsche Börse has
moved to bolster its index and risk analytics
business through the acquisition of Axioma for
$850 million.
Deutsche Börse confirmed the deal, adding
that Axioma will be combined with its internal
index businesses STOXX and DAX to form a new
company valued at €2.6 billion. The exchange
operator described the new business a “leading
buy-side player” providing analytics to meet
growing demand.
As part of the transaction, Deutsche Börse
has also entered into a partnership with
growth equity investor Generale Atlantic,
which will invest $715 million into the new
company. The funds will be used to finance the
acquisition.
“This transaction is a step change for our
pre-trading business and fully in line with our
Roadmap 2020 strategy, which besides organic
growth builds on programmatic M&A and new
technologies,” said Theodor Weimer, CEO of Deut-
sche Börse. “We are also excited about the part-
nership with General Atlantic and believe it will
help to further accelerate growth of the combined
business and to achieve strong value creation.”
The combined company will be led by Axioma’s
current chief executive and founder, Sebastian
Ceria, who will be responsible for strengthening
the combined business.