THE alternative trading system Liquidnet is doing big business while it lobbies for a licence to compete with the Australian Securities Exchange.
Since launching on February 20, the "selective" trading system — which only accepts institutional clients — has facilitated equity trades worth more than $200 million.
Acting like a sharemarket dating service, Liquidnet matches buyers and sellers, allowing them to complete their transaction in one go rather than having to divide it up to disguise its size. In the past four weeks, Santos shares valued at $5.4 million changed hands in a single transaction.
"Institutions have outgrown the market's ability to handle their business effectively," said New York-based Liquidnet founder Seth Merrin, who was in Melbourne yesterday to promote the multinational business.
Liquidnet operates under an Australian financial services licence and employs a broker, but the company has applied for a markets licence, which would allow it to conduct trades independently of the ASX.
Mr Merrin, and Liquidnet Asia managing director David Klinger, said the move would add competition to the monopolistic Australian market, therefore reducing trading costs. "If you reduce the cost of trading, there will be more trading," Mr Merrin said.
But like Instinet's Chi-X Australia trading system, Liquidnet is waiting for approval from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
Mr Merrin said the route to approval had been "circuitous". But in light of recent issues, such as delayed settlement in the market and suspected market manipulation, he emphasised Liquidnet's reliability.
"In seven years we have never had one issue (with settlements)," he said. "We are very careful about who our clients are."
Liquidnet operates as a broker in the US and Europe, and executes trades in Hong Kong and Japan. It has offices in six cities around the world, including Sydney.
hot dating articles at http://dating.chovva.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment