Refinitiv, formerly the Financial and Risk business of Thomson Reuters, signed a definitive agreement to acquire order management system specialist AlphaDesk. The move is expected to expand the buy-side portfolio management and trading capabilities of Blackstone’s financial markets data provider.
The deal will see Refinitiv integrating the AlphaDesk platform, which expands its end-to-end trading solution, following the acquisition of REDI in 2017. AlphaDesk provides order and portfolio management, risk, and compliance solutions for buy-side users, including hedge funds and other investment managers.
Refinitiv’s existing front-office suite already includes REDI’s EMS platform, which is currently integrated with its pre-trade data and Analytics platform Eikon. Refinitiv’s Eikon solution has been one of Thomson Reuters’ flagship products that helps aggregate and process real-time and historical data to facilitate financial markets transactions and connectivity. The product has already been adopted across 180 different countries, making it one of the most widely used platforms in the market.
By securing AlphaDesk, however, Refinitiv will be able to Leverage an improved multi-asset class and multi-currency OMS platform with flexible workflows. This will be more customizable to the differing needs of individual buy-side traders and asset managers as AlphaDesk software combines OMS and operations management capabilities.
Refinitiv went private in October 2018 when Thomson Reuters completed the sale of a majority stake in its financial-and-risk arm to private equity firm Blackstone Group, alongside Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Singapore state fund GIC for $17 billion.
Michael Chin, Managing Director and co-Head of Trading, Refinitiv, noted: “With the acquisition of AlphaDesk, Refinitiv now delivers an even more powerful buy-side trading solution that is flexible, compliant, interoperable, and covers all segments of the trading workflow. As a Cloud-based provider, AlphaDesk further aligns with Refinitiv’s overall Cloud strategy, and will help provide a more seamless path to implementation and integration yielding significant cost-savings and agility for our clients.”
“We are very excited about joining the Refinitiv team. There is great potential to provide hedge funds and asset managers what they have been asking for: a simpler way to acquire and manage better technology. The combination of our front-to-back, cloud-based system with Refinitiv’s global reach and extensive technology platform will help provide a truly superior offering to clients all over the world,” added Dan Rissin, CEO, AlphaDesk.
