Virtu and MarketAxess Plan to Join Forces on ETFs and Fixed Income

Virtu FinancialThe effort, which is expected to launch in the third quarter, is still subject to the parties entering into a binding definitive agreement. Virtu Financial has partnered with MarketAxess Holdings to provide institutions with enhanced trading tools and access to global exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and fixed income securities.
The two global leaders in electronic trading have joined forces to provide:
– Global, multi-asset and multi-currency coverage to MarketAxess and Virtu RFQ-hub clients;
– Disclosed and anonymous ETF trading via a request-for-quote protocol;
– Virtu’s real-time eNAV, a streaming fair value tool for ETFs;
– Superior, real-time trade analytics supported by the MarketAxess award-winning Composite+ (CP+) algorithmic pricing tool and Virtu’s comprehensive suite of TCA tools.

Virtu Financial is a leading financial technology firm that delivers liquidity to the global markets and innovative, transparent trading solutions to buy-side and sell-side institutions. Virtu recently acquired ITG to create a premier agency execution and broker neutral workflow and analytics franchise. Virtu’s RFQ-hub is a market leader in equity derivatives and structured products and is active in ETFs. MarketAxess is the operator of a leading electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities, and the provider of market data and post-trade services for the global fixed-income markets.

Chris Concannon, President at MarketAxess
Chris Concannon, President at MarketAxess
Chris Concannon, President at MarketAxess, commented:   
“We are pleased to partner with Virtu to deliver institutional investors a new, cost-efficient, secure solution for achieving quality execution in ETFs. ETFs have grown quickly to become an integral feature of the liquidity landscape in global credit markets. Our entry into ETF trading with Virtu is a natural extension of our success with Open Trading™, now established as the preferred all-to-all trading solution in the credit markets.”
Douglas Cifu, Chief Executive Officer of Virtu Financial
Douglas Cifu, Chief Executive Officer of Virtu Financial

Doug Cifu, Chief Executive Officer at Virtu Financial, added:

“This exciting and complementary partnership combines MarketAxess’s leading fixed-income platform with Virtu’s global multi-asset class and ETF expertise. Clients of MarketAxess will have access to Virtu’s leading ETF platform RFQ-hub and will benefit from the seamless integration of RFQ-hub’s ETF trading and analytics services. In addition, RFQ-hub will have access to MarketAxess’ leading fixed income platform.”
Virtu Financial has recently appointed David Urban, an industry veteran with over two decades of experience in senior-level roles in US government, law and consultancy, to its Board of Directors while in the process of acquiring ITG, a multi-national agency brokerage in a deal worth $1 billion.
Earlier in 2018, Fidessa connected its market access solutions to Virtu’s Systematic Internaliser’s (SIs) customizable liquidity. The scope of SIs has been further expanded to investment firms which deal on their own accounts by executing client orders outside the trading venues.
In February 2019, MarketAxess was approved by the Dutch regulator AFM to operate a Multilateral Trading Facility (MTF) and act as a Data Reporting Service Provider (DRSP) in the Netherlands in order to ensure that UK and EU clients are provided with uninterrupted service and access to liquidity post-Brexit.