Dash Financial, LiquidPoint, Abacus Group, Tradovate and Order Flow Analytics also have FinTech news this week.
S&P Says a QuantHouse Founder Is the Buyer
S&P Global has entered into a definitive agreement to sell Quant House SAS (QuantHouse) to a company owned by Pierre Feligioni, one of QuantHouse’s original founders, according to S&P Global officials, who decline to disclose terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
QuantHouse offers trading solutions such as ultra-low latency market data, algo trading development frameworks, proximity hosting and order routing to hedge funds, market makers, proprietary desks, brokers and sell-side firms, officials say.
“We are pleased to have agreed to sell QuantHouse to one of its original founders, Pierre Feligioni,” S&P Global Market Intelligence President, Mike Chinn says in a prepared statement. “Mr. Feligioni’s extensive familiarity with QuantHouse provides the business and its employees with the best opportunity to invest in product enhancements and even more effectively serve clients while allowing S&P Global Market Intelligence to focus its resources on growth opportunities that most closely align with our vision,” Chinn adds.
“While we leveraged S&P Global’s reach together for several years, we collectively believe that the time is right for QuantHouse to regain focus and flexibility to exploit growing market opportunities in North America, Europe and Asia,” Pierre Feligioni says in a statement.
QuantHouse’s management team “will remain with the company as it enters this new phase of its growth,” officials say. The transaction is expected to be complete by mid-January.
Dash Financial & LiquidPoint Merge to Create New Company
Vendor Dash Financial and agency brokerage Convergex have signed a definitive agreement to merge Dash and Convergex’s LiquidPoint options trading and technology business to create Dash Financial Technologies, officials say.
Dash Financial provides execution and analytics for the U.S. options and equities markets while LiquidPoint offers options trading technology and routing services to the sell side and exchanges.
Private equity firm GTCR, which owns a controlling interest in brokerage firm Convergex, will be overseeing the merging of LiquidPoint and Dash, officials say. The combined entity will operate as Dash Financial Technologies and be majority owned by GTCR. The newly formed company will be led by Peter Maragos as CEO and Ben Londergan as president.
“Our core mission is to deliver highly transparent trading technology and pure agency execution solutions to the institutional community,” says Peter Maragos, CEO of Dash, in a prepared statement. “Together we are uniquely positioned to offer the widest range of solutions to help the buy side, sell side and exchanges navigate the ever-evolving market structure and regulatory environment.”
Officials add that Dash was advised on the transaction by Raymond James while Sidley Austin LLP served as Dash’s legal counsel. Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal counsel for GTCR and Convergex.
Abacus Group Adds Cybersecurity Support
Managed cloud services vendor Abacus Group has expanded its cybersecurity services with the launch of AbacusFLEX Protect.
The new support offers auditing and reporting capabilities and leverages Varonis DatAdvantage to monitor file activity and user behavior to manage permissions, identify where sensitive data resides and prevent breaches, officials say.
Abacus developed FLEX Protect to be “proprietary and custom tailored to the alternative investment industry,” officials say. The new functions will offer insight into “a hedge fund’s systems and services, highlighting patterns, security risks and social connections to monitor and protect sensitive data from insider threats.”
Analytics Tools Are Now Available on Tradovate’s Cloud-Based Platform
Tradovate, an online brokerage firm for futures traders, has integrated analytical and algorithmic trading tools from Order Flow Analytics (OFA) into the Tradovate cloud-based platform, officials say.
“Active traders are very focused on applying useful analytical tools to guide their trading strategies. But there is increased demand for these tools to be easy and cost-efficient to deploy,” says Ryan Hansen, president of Tradovate, in a statement.
“With our cloud-based approach, we can help transform the delivery of OFA’s extremely sophisticated order flow, volume visualization, trading algos and automated trade management tools, enabling users to get set up and trading very quickly,” Hansen says. “Since OFA’s algo orders are held securely on the server side before going to the respective exchange — rather than being held on the client’s computer — traders benefit from a significant reduction in point-of-failure risk.”
The agreement specifies that Tradovate will extend to OFA clients its unlimited commission-free trading and cloud-based platform. “Through Tradovate’s cloud-based technology, OFA clients will, for the first time, be able to access the tools on Mac devices and via the web,” officials add. Tradovate clients will be able to access OFA’s popular offerings, including pre-built algorithms for automated trade management and order flow tools.
The OFA system analyzes order flow and volume via three-dimensional visualization to provide insight into real-time market sentiment, officials say.
“We’re committed to offering our clients a wide range of valuable tools to go along with our trading platform, and OFA is an outstanding addition as our latest integration,” says Rick Tomsic, Tradovate founder and CEO.
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