Barclays Capital, the investment banking division of Barclays Bank, has announced its second investment in a trading venue in the space of two days.
Barclays has become the eleventh investment bank to back US block trading venue BIDS Trading, joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Knight Capital Group, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and UBS. Exchange group NYSE Euronext has also made an investment in the alternative trading system (ATS).
Barclays announced on Monday that it would take a stake in pan-European multilateral trading facility Turquoise, which was bought by the London Stock Exchange (LSE) earlier this year. It was one of three banks to pay £1 million for a 3% stake in share capital that was set aside by the LSE for potential investors. Barclays is now one of 12 banks that account for 49% of the shareholding in Turquoise, leaving the LSE with a 51% majority.
Commenting on Barclays’ investment in his firm, BIDS Trading CEO Tim Mahoney said, “This level of industry support, along with our ever-increasing user base, continues to validate the BIDS Trading model. We look forward to working closely with Barclays Capital as we continue our mission to grow our liquidity pool and provide an efficient platform for institutional investors to trade blocks of shares.”
Brian Fagen, head of equities electronic trading distribution at Barclays Capital, added, “This investment is part of Barclays Capital’s efforts to provide our clients with intelligent and efficient access to diverse pools of liquidity.”
As well as its main block trading ATS, which allows traders to customise their block trading preferences, BIDS Trading participants also have simultaneous access to the New York Block Exchange, a joint venture between BIDS Trading and NYSE Euronext, which combines displayed and hidden order flow on NYSE with liquidity on
BIDS ATS.