Bats Europe, one of the continent’s largest Stock Exchange operators, has agreed to license BIDS Trading LP’s technology to launch help unveil Bats (Large in Scale) LIS, a new block trading service for the broader European equity market, according to a Bats statement.
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BIDS is presently the largest block trading ATS by volume in the United States – its partnership with Bats will help extend a host of new capabilities and functionality to market participants, namely in regards to block traders. As such, Bats LIS acts as a large in scale indication of interest (IOI) negotiation and Execution platform, enabling market participants to negotiate large blocks in European equities.
Platform Benefits
The platform is subject to requisite regulatory approval, which is important for users given it abstains from exposing market participants’ intentions to the wider market. Bats LIS will also be leveraging BIDS’ software, BIDS Trader, and buy-side channel distribution, along with Bats’ existing trading execution infrastructure.
Bats LIS was designed to provide buy-side traders with added protection and defenses against information leakage, namely of their IOIs. This includes a broker model, which affords buy-side traders the ability to maintain relationships with their brokers as well as the aggregation of block flow of both the buy and the sell-side, resulting in better crossing opportunities.
According to Mark Hemsley, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Bats Europe, in a statement on the launch, “We’ve listened to the buy-side community in Europe and understand their unique challenges in trading large blocks of stock and we believe that our new LIS service will help them better execute their large in scale trading activity.”
Tim Mahoney
“A complement to our existing order book offerings, Bats LIS provides the buy-side with a MiFID II compliant platform that offers IOI protection tools and full control over their IOI until execution to protect against information leakage.”
“Global clients want global solutions. Partnering with Bats Europe allows each of us to bring our core strengths together to provide another piece of the global block trading market to our mutual clients in an efficient manner. Maintaining the important relationships between the buy-side and their brokers and successfully integrating the flows of each on one platform have been the keys to BIDS’ success in the US,” noted Tim Mahoney, CEO of BIDS Trading, in an accompanying statement.
Bats made headlines earlier this month after it released its Q2 2016 earnings, which saw a generally mixed quarter. Profits and revenues were diverging, though it held onto the majority of its market share, continuing to solidify itself as one of the largest players in the industry.
