Appital, an equity capital marketplace trading platform , announced that Instinet, an institutional, agency-model broker, will be the first executing broker to integrate on the Appital Bookbuilding platform. By working with leading brokerage firms like Instinet, Appital is driving the technological infrastructure development necessary to integrate its platform into existing market structures and bring automation and innovation to equity capital markets.
Appital’s platform will be fully integrated with Instinet, thus bringing a traditional manual order flow process to an automated platform. Through Instinet’s integration with Appital, buy-side companies would have access to the liquidity and efficiency of executing on Turquoise, a global securities trading platform, with all-in-one straight-through-processing (STP) to more than 20 settlement venues. Triggered by demand from some of the biggest asset management companies worldwide, the integration would provide the buy-side community with a more transparent and efficient way to execute large orders with minimal risk of price erosion or market impact.
Over the last few months, Appital and Instinet have embraced close collaboration to develop a channel for new execution flow suited to buyside companies looking to get block trading opportunities and seeking greater exposure to European deal flow that they have not been able to access before. The integration is set to enable asset management firms to interact with like-minded institutions in the liquidity and price formation process, and any flow that is created and negotiated on the Appital platform can be executed via Instinet.
Mark Badyra, the CEO of Appital, said: “What we set out to do with Appital is provide unique, electronic price formation capabilities of illiquid equity positions to enable execution with minimal market impact or risk of price erosion. Through our collaboration with Instinet we have created a new execution workflow that has not existed before; one that best facilitates the needs of our joint asset management client base.”
Meanwhile, Richard Parsons, the CEO of Instinet Europe, also commented: “Embracing new technologies and finding new and innovative ways for our buyside clients to access hard to find liquidity are core elements of our mission. Appital’s bookbuilding platform is designed to give our joint client base an automated, more efficient way to proactively source scarce liquidity, often over multiple days, and drive a quality block bookbuilding process. We are delighted to collaborate with Appital in preparation for their European launch, and to deliver even greater access to liquidity to our clients.”
How Appital Provides Innovative Solutions to Institutional Investors
The announcement by Appital comes at a time when the equity capital marketplace remains committed to continuing to provide institutional investors with a new platform to actively source liquidity, including in highly illiquid securities (often above 5 days ADV) with the aim of getting returns for the end investor.
In November last year, Appital hired Mike Wharton as its new Head of Product to spearhead the company’s vision towards the delivery of innovation and automation in equity capital markets. Such commitment is set to unlock and uncover liquidity for investors to provide them greater exposure to handle flow and execution opportunities. In September last year, FlexTrade Systems' solutions integrated with Appital’s bookbuilding platform as the first EMS provider. Such integration with Appital brings automation and transparency to an area of the market traditionally plagued by opacity and outdated, phone-based bookbuilding activity. The Appital platform is recognized for providing full control and transparency over the bookbuilding, distribution and allocation process in more than 20 global markets.
