Equiduct revival gathers pace

Equiduct has expanded the role of a key market maker on its pan-European trading venue, adding further to liquidity available to its members.

Equiduct has expanded the role of a key market maker on its pan-European trading venue, adding further to liquidity available to its members.

Virtu Financial Ireland, an electronic market making firm, will offer liquidity in a number of European stocks over Equiduct's PartnerEx bilateral trading service. Virtu already trades on Equiduct's hybrid book, which offers continuous trading.

PartnerEx allows order flow providers to establish relationships with market makers that execute orders on their behalf at a consolidated European best bid or offer (EBBO). Equiduct calculates the consolidated EBBO based on traded prices across domestic exchanges and multilateral trading facilities BATS Chi-X Europe and Turquoise.

"We are excited about the opportunity to add further market making support on Equiduct and will begin providing liquidity in the coming weeks, subject to conducting the necessary risk analysis and securing regulatory approval," David Furlong, managing director, Virtu Financial Ireland, told theTRADEnews.com. "Joining the PartnerEx service allows us to interact with a different type of flow that isn't available on most other European trading platforms."

Equiduct is on the hunt for new partners following the recent withdrawal of investment and market making services of majority shareholder Citadel Securities, the trading firm that is also in the process of downsizing its European agency execution services for clients based in the region.

Since losing the backing of Citadel a few weeks ago, Equiduct has also added UK market maker Winterflood as a liquidity provider.

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