Agency broker Instinet has opened an office in Sydney and licensed it as a member of the Australian Securities Exchange, allowing the firm to serve domestic Australian clients via an onshore sales and trading desk.
Instinet Australia will now be able to trade on the ASX directly instead of serving domestic Australian clients through its Hong Kong trading desk’s remote membership, which has been in place since 2007. Instinet has been a member of the ASX Settlement and Transfer Corporation since 2008.
“Since being granted the first remote participation license in September 2007, we’ve grown to become the eleventh largest institutional broker in Australia,” said Glenn Lesko, CEO of Instinet in Asia, in a statement.
“By coming onshore and being closer to our clients we have realised the next step in our plans for growth here,” added John Fildes, COO, Instinet Asia. “Our Australian equities trading team that has operated out of Hong Kong since 2007 will now move to Sydney, while we expect to add several new traders in the coming months.”
According to its own figures, Instinet’s market share of Australian equities continues to grow, reaching 3.7% at the end of November last year.
“2008 and 2009 brought the issues of cost and transparency into sharp focus in Australia,” said Lesko. “As the market changes again in 2010, particularly with the predicted opening up of the market to competitive trading venues, these issues will be more important than ever since funds now realise that every basis point saved has a direct impact on the return to its members.”