A new trading venue specialising in Nordic equities will be launched in the first half of next year by ten Swedish financial institutions.
The new platform, to be called Burgundy, is backed by SEB, Handelsbanken, Swedbank and seven other brokers that collectively account for around 45% of trading volumes on OMX Stockholm, the main exchange for Swedish equities.
Burgundy, which has been registered as a multilateral trading facility (MTF) under the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), will offer trading in equities listed in Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. A statement issued on behalf of Burgundy said the initiative was important in maintaining regional influence over trading in Nordic securities, according to local media sources.
Chi-X, the pan-European MTF owned by agency-broker Instinet, announced the completion of its coverage of the Nordic markets earlier this week when it started trading in leading Norwegian and Danish stocks. Turquoise, another pan-European MTF backed by nine investment banks, will include Nordic stocks when it goes live in September. Nasdaq OMX, which owns and operates the Stockholm, Copenhagen and Helsinki exchanges, will also launch its own pan-European trading facility in September.
In addition to the three large Swedish banks, other participants in the project include Neonet, Kaupthing, Carnegie, Nordnet, Ohman, Avanza and Evli. Nordic Growth Market, an exchange registered with the Swedish financial regulator, has offered “off-hours” trading in liquid Nordic stocks since April.