In other news, we cover UBS selling its stake in Clearstream Fund Centre, Prometheum appointing a former FINRA advisor, and MarketAxess piloting a diversity initiative.
Capitolis Hires James Reilly
James Reilly
A software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor, Capitolis has hired industry veteran James Reilly from State Street and appointed him as its new head of equity and total return swaps (TRS) funding solutions, officials say.
Reilly has two decades of capital markets and financial technology experience. The Capitolis networking software helps firms find liquidity via other firms’ balance sheets, vendor officials say.
Before joining Capitolis, Reilly was a senior managing director at State Street Global Markets and served as the CEO of Currenex, a foreign exchange (FX) technology vendor, owned by State Street, officials say.
“At Currenex, Reilly led the firm’s strategic direction, new product launches, core acquisitions, and margin expansion,” according to Capitolis. Before those roles, Reilly served as global head of macro sales and trading at Cantor Fitzgerald and head of FX and derivatives prime brokerage at Morgan Stanley.
For his new role, Reilly will run the development and execution of “a suite of equity financing products that will enable financial institutions to finance and structure new portfolios of positions with a unique technology platform,” according to Capitolis. In particular, Reilly will oversee the product, technology, operations, and sales teams at Capitolis.
Reilly “will be instrumental in helping us industrialize our offering and reach more financial institutions with our structured financing technology solutions, in our mission to create a fairer, safer, and healthier marketplace for all participants,” says Gil Mandelzis, CEO and founder of Capitolis, in a prepared statement.
Founded in 2017, Capitolis, based in New York City, has the backing of venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, Spark Capital, SVB Capital, and S Capital, officials say. Global banks such as Citi, JPMorgan, and State Street are also supporting the company, which has offices in New York and London, and a headquarters in Tel Aviv.
UBS to Sell Stake in Clearstream Fund Centre
UBS Group and UBS AG officials recently announced that they have agreed to sell a minority stake — 48.8 percent in Clearstream Fund Centre (CFC) to Deutsche Börse AG for approximately CHF 390 million ($432.8 million).
“Long-term commercial cooperation arrangements remain in place for the provision of services by Clearstream to UBS, including the collaboration in jointly servicing banks and insurance companies,” according to a prepared statement from UBS. “The transaction follows the successful transition of UBS Fondcenter to Deutsche Börse in September 2020.”
“With the transition now complete, and the business on a strong growth trajectory, our clients are in good hands and Clearstream Fund Centre is well placed for the future,” says Suni Harford, president of UBS Asset Management, in a statement.
Clearstream Fund Centre was “a highly complementary business for Clearstream’s fund operations businesses. Our two-step integration approach with UBS has enabled a seamless transition for clients and laid the perfect basis for our continued, long-term partnership with UBS,” says Stephan Leithner, member of the executive board of Deutsche Börse AG and Clearstream chairman, in a prepared statement. “We see significant opportunities to further grow the global footprint of this business, particularly in Europe but also in Asia Pacific.”
The transaction is expected to be complete in June 2021, officials say.
Prometheum Appoints Ex-FINRA Advisor to be CRO
Rosemary Fannelli
Prometheum, a digital asset securities platform, has appointed a former senior advisor for regulator FINRA, Rosemarie Fanelli, to be its next chief regulatory officer (CRO), officials say.
Fanelli, who has more than 33 years of regulatory experience, will run Prometheum’s regulatory affairs, officials say.
At FINRA, Fanelli served as senior advisor to FINRA’s department of member supervision, “acting as an expert and tactical advisor on complex and novel issues” related to the regulator’s risk monitoring and examination programs, officials say. She “played an influential role in resolving complex regulatory and interpretative matters with the SEC, FINRA member firms, and other agencies.”
Fanelli was also a member of FINRA’s Digital Policy Group, which involves “issues concerning digital assets,” and where she served as a digital assets specialist, “assisting FINRA staff with questions, policy, guidance related to digital assets,” officials add.
“As digital asset securities and blockchain technology are poised to revolutionize the traditional capital markets, regulatory compliance will become one of the main differentiators for new market entrants,” Fanelli says in a prepared statement.
MarketAxess Pilots a ‘Diversity Dealer Initiative’
MarketAxess Holdings, an operator of electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities, is piloting a Diversity Dealer Initiative, described as “a series of technology enhancements that will enable leading buy-side institutions and minority-, women- and veteran-owned broker-dealers to more easily trade with one another on the MarketAxess platform,” officials say.
“The pilot program began in November 2020 and supports trading in investment-grade bonds, high yield bonds, and municipal securities available through the Open Trading marketplace,” according to MarketAxess officials. “Based on significant early interest in the Diversity Dealer Initiative, additional dealer and institutional investor firms are currently being on-boarded.”
Current pilot participants include Loop Capital Markets, R. Seelaus & Co., BlackRock, Inc., and AllianceBernstein L.P. (AB), according to MarketAxess officials.
MarketAxess, which also provides market data and post-trade services, adds that the initiative leverages the vendor’s “anonymous all-to-all Open Trading marketplace and provides enhanced trading connections by allowing investor clients to select a diversity dealer to intermediate an Open Trading transaction,” officials say. “The Open Trading network of institutional participants creates a significant pool of available liquidity, which delivered over 25,000 credit trading opportunities per day and over $16 billion in daily notional volume in 2020.”
“Many institutions want to trade with a more diverse set of counterparties,” says Rick McVey, chairman and CEO of MarketAxess, in a prepared statement. “By eliminating barriers to opportunity and building connectivity in global fixed-income trading, we are able to improve liquidity for all market participants.”
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