NEWS BITES
Nomura becomes first crypto custody bank
Japanese bank Nomura has become the first
bank to offer custody services for digital assets
such as Bitcoin, a move that could unlock
significant institutional investor interest. The
bank has partnered with Ledger, a security and
infrastructure provider for cryptocurrencies, and
Global Advisors, a bitcoin-specialist investment
manager, through a new venture called Komainu.
ICE to acquire TMC Bonds in $685 million deal
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has agreed
to buy fixed income marketplace TMC Bonds
for $685 million in cash. Founded in 2000,
TMC Bonds provides trading in various
fixed income products including munici-
pals, corporates, treasuries, agencies and
certificates of deposit, with click-to-trade
or request for quote (RFQ) functions.
Citi clears first buy-side SONIA
trade on CurveGlobal
The first buy-side SONIA trade on the London
Stock Exchange Group’s Interest rate derivatives
platform CurveGlobal has been cleared cleared
by Citi. CurveGlobal launched the three-month
Sterling Overnight Index Average (SONIA) futures
contracts earlier this year, as the UK transitions
from the LIBOR benchmark to the new index.
Fidessa accepts £1.5 billion take-
over offer from ION
Fidessa has agreed to terms of a £1.5 billion
all cash offer by ION Investment Group’s ION
Bidco subsidiary, overturning its earlier recom-
mended acquisition by Temenos. ION offered
Fidessa’s shareholders £39.50 per share,
including in aggregate £38.70 per share and a
79.7p dividend paid in June, 8.5% higher than
the £35.67 bid offered by Temenos in February.
8 // TheTrade // Summer 2018
EQUITIES
Tradeweb expands into
equities with Plato
Partnership block trading
venture
Tradeweb and Plato Partnership to
launch European cash equities block
trading platform later this year.
Fixed income and derivatives electronic trading firm
Tradeweb is expanding into the equities space through
the launch of a block trading cash equity platform with
Plato Partnership.
Known as eBlock, the platform allows traders to
source and aggregate broker principle risk, offering the
buy-side more control over execution, and the opportu-
nity to match and negotiate orders on a regulated venue.
It also uses ‘blotter scraping’ technology to provide
users with data to target organisations based on activity,
execution rates and market impact.
Tradeweb’s chief executive, Lee Olesky, said that hav-
ing already brought electronic request-for-quote (RFQ)
platforms to the market in fixed income, derivatives and
ETFs, the partnership with Plato marks a “significant
milestone” for the firm.
“We are excited to extend this highly successful model
to cash equities, and to work with Plato to develop new
trading mechanisms to more efficiently execute block
trades against principal liquidity on a regulated trading
venue,” Olseky added.
Tradeweb and Plato Partnership will work closely
together to drive the development of the new platform,
which is scheduled to go-live in Q3 this year. The first
phase of the launch will include RFQ capabilities for
targeting broker principle risk liquidity, and it will be
operated by Tradeweb on its multilateral facility (MTF).
“eBlock allows buy-side traders to tie the sourcing of
risk liquidity into the execution process using intelli-
gent data analytics, giving them the necessary infor-
mation required to make good decisions about trade
execution,” Mike Bellaro, Plato Partnership co-c