Agency broker and trading technology provider ConvergEx Group has developed new block trading platform for Mahogany Partners, a consortium of mid-tier US brokers.
Mahogany Partners, which includes several New York Stock Exchange floor brokers, commissioned ConvergEx Group in November 2009 to build a suite of electronic trading products to enhance its members’ block trading capabilities.
The first offering, SONAR, facilitates anonymous block trading with a suite of blotter polling tools and a shadow blotter system. SONAR will enable Mahogany members to access external block liquidity as well as cross blocks between themselves electronically. The system is designed to complement sell-side order management systems and incorporates liquidity-seeking capabilities.
According to ConvergEx, the software represents the first time a blotter polling solution has been designed for sell-side participants.
“In the past, the broker-dealer community was only able to electronically trade block liquidity by resting designated orders,” said Andrew Levine, managing director at ConvergEx Group. “This new customised workflow gives the Mahogany participant firms an advanced way to interact with each other and gives them the advantage of blotter polling technology, which proactively notifies them with a tradable alert as soon as relevant block liquidity becomes available.”
“Since we announced that we were building this technology, we have attracted a strong pipeline of clients,” added John Rapa, chief operating officer of Mahogany Partners. “We formed Mahogany to identify efficiencies and facilitate greater access to block liquidity. By partnering with the technology experts at ConvergEx, we not only achieved that, but also have greatly improved the way we provide access to block trading.”