LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
MarketAxess Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:MKTX) and BlackRock, Inc. (NYSE:BLK)
are expanding their Open Trading™ alliance into the European credit
markets. The strategic alliance seeks to improve liquidity and reduce
transaction costs for European fixed income market participants,
building upon the success of the firms’ existing partnership in U.S.
credit. The alliance will offer increased choice in execution options
and counterparties, while providing valuable data and market insights to
better inform trading decisions in European markets. Under the expanded
partnership, the firms will continue their efforts to develop innovative
trading protocols that address liquidity challenges in the global credit
markets.
The partnership combines order flow from the world’s largest asset
manager and its broad Aladdin® investor client community with
MarketAxess’ network of more than 1000 investor and dealer firms to
improve the range of trading connections available to European credit
market participants. BlackRock and its Aladdin community will have the
benefit of streamlined access to MarketAxess’ expanded liquidity options
and data products through the Aladdin platform.
This alliance coincides with the launch of MarketAxess’ all-to-all Open
Trading in European credit products, leveraging the broad network of
institutional participants on the MarketAxess trading platform. Open
Trading enables all buyers and sellers to source liquidity from all
other MarketAxess system participants in a single, independent market
place for credit trading.
Rick McVey, Chairman and CEO of MarketAxess, said: “Our Open Trading
Alliance with BlackRock in the U.S. has led to meaningful improvement in
credit market liquidity and a promising path forward to deal with much
larger global credit markets and significant regulatory changes. We are
very pleased to extend this alliance to Europe where investors and
dealers are facing many of the same liquidity challenges. Over 7% of
U.S. high-grade trades on MarketAxess now take place via Open Trading
protocols, compared to just 2% a year ago. We have seen an acceleration
in adoption rates for Open Trading by both dealers and investors as
market volatility has increased. ”
“MarketAxess has been a tremendous partner and we are excited for this
next step in delivering innovative liquidity solutions that benefit
BlackRock’s asset management and Aladdin clients,” said Richie Prager,
global head of Trading and Liquidity Strategies at BlackRock. “The fixed
income investment landscape has evolved more quickly than the market’s
underlying structure for transacting, challenging buyers’ and sellers’
abilities to connect and transact and requiring investors to explore new
avenues of liquidity to meet their needs.”
Richard Schiffman, Open Trading Product Manager at MarketAxess, said:
"Since the beginning of 2014 over 77,000 all-to-all transactions have
been completed using MarketAxess Open Trading protocols such as Market
Lists. During last year participants on MarketAxess had access to over
100,000 prices in response to anonymous Market List orders. This is new
liquidity that was only available by bringing together investors,
dealers and other market participants onto a single all-to-all platform.”
In addition to trading innovations, clients in Europe will benefit from
access to unique market data from Trax®, with volume and pricing data
from 40,000 daily regulatory reported transactions, and quoted and
traded prices on over 50,000 unique bonds.
About MarketAxess
MarketAxess operates a leading electronic trading platform that enables
fixed-income market participants to efficiently trade corporate bonds
and other types of fixed-income instruments using MarketAxess' patented
trading technology. Over 1,000 institutional investor and broker-dealer
firms are active users of the MarketAxess trading platform, accessing
global liquidity in U.S. high-grade corporate bonds, emerging markets
and high-yield bonds, European bonds, U.S. agency bonds, credit default
swaps and other fixed-income securities. MarketAxess SEF Corporation has
received temporary registration from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading
Commission to operate a swap execution facility. MarketAxess also offers
a number of trading-related products and services, including: market
data to assist clients with trading decisions; connectivity solutions
that facilitate straight-through processing; technology services to
optimize trading environments; and execution services for
exchange-traded fund managers and other clients. Through its Trax®
division, MarketAxess also offers a range of pre- and post-trade
services, including trade matching, regulatory transaction reporting and
market and reference data, across a range of fixed-income products. Trax
is the trading name of Xtrakter Ltd., a MarketAxess group company.
MarketAxess maintains its headquarters in New York and has offices in
London, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, São Paulo and
Singapore. For more information, please visit www.marketaxess.com.
About Trax®
Trax is a leading provider of capital market data, trade matching and
regulatory reporting services to the global securities market. In 2013
Trax processed 1.12 billion of transactions on behalf of its user
community. Trax provides capital market firms with information to assist
them in conducting net asset valuations, mark-to-market calculations,
fixed-income portfolio mapping, liquidity and volume modelling, as well
as reference data population updates. It also provides a wide range of
pricing data for approximately 69,000 unique bonds, volume data on over
50,000 individual bonds as well as securities reference data for over
300,000 government bonds, corporate bonds, medium-term notes and private
derivative issues.
Trax is based in London and was originally established in 1985. Acquired
by MarketAxess in 2013, Trax is a trading name of Xtrakter Ltd. and is a
wholly owned subsidiary of MarketAxess Holdings, Inc. For more
information, please visit www.traxmarkets.com.
About BlackRock
BlackRock is a leader in investment management, risk management and
advisory services for institutional and retail clients worldwide. At
December 31, 2014, BlackRock’s AUM was $4.652 trillion. BlackRock helps
clients meet their goals and overcome challenges with a range of
products that include separate accounts, mutual funds, iShares®
(exchange-traded funds), and other pooled investment vehicles. BlackRock
also offers risk management, advisory and enterprise investment system
services to a broad base of institutional investors through BlackRock
Solutions®. Headquartered in New York City, as of December 31, 2014, the
firm had approximately 12,200 employees in more than 30 countries and a
major presence in key global markets, including North and South America,
Europe, Asia, Australia and the Middle East and Africa. For additional
information, please visit the Company’s website at www.blackrock.com
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About Aladdin
Aladdin® is an operating system for investment managers that connects
the information, people and technology needed to manage money in real
time. The Aladdin platform combines sophisticated risk analytics with
comprehensive portfolio management, trading and operations tools on a
single platform to power informed decision-making, effective risk
management, efficient trading and operational scale. Aladdin Trading
Network is Aladdin’s liquidity portal, leveraging connectivity to
aggregate external liquidity and integrate the marketplace within
Aladdin’s tools.
This press release is not intended to be relied upon as a forecast,
research or investment advice, and is not a recommendation, offer or
solicitation to buy or sell any securities or financial product or to
adopt any investment strategy. All investments involve risk and may lose
value. The opinions expressed are as of January 21, 2015 and may change
as subsequent conditions vary. BlackRock is not responsible for any
information posted on any third party websites. The information posted
on any third party website does not necessarily reflect BlackRock's
views.
© 2015 BlackRock, Inc. All Rights reserved.
BLACKROCK, BLACKROCK SOLUTIONS, ALADDIN and iSHARES are
registered and unregistered trademarks of BlackRock, Inc. or its
subsidiaries in the United States and elsewhere. All other trademarks
are those of their respective owners.
GMC-0054
BlackRock Media Relations:
London
Paul
Young, +44 (0) 20 7743 2142
Paul.young@blackrock.com
New
York
Tara McDonnell, 212-810-5337
Tara.McDonnell@blackrock.com
MarketAxess
Media Relations:
Florencia Panizza, 212-813-6029
Fpanizza@marketaxess.com
MarketAxess
Investor
Relations:
Tony DeLise, 212-813-6017
Tdelise@marketaxess.com
Source: BlackRock, Inc.