Ex-Townsend Chief Takes Helm at Lime
December 15, 2008
Lime Brokerage introduced a successor to CEO Alistair Brown earlier this month, naming Jeffrey Wecker, head of execution management systems provider Townsend Analytics until May, to the position.
Brown, who started up New York-based Lime with Mark Gorton in 2001, is staying on as chairman, though he has relocated to Florida. Wecker will be responsible not only for the agency brokerage's sizable U.S. equities business, but its expansion into options and the European equities market.
Lime, which offers trading services to hedge funds, asset managers and broker-dealers, excels at both the technology and finance sides of the business, according to Wecker, who added that he has "built a lot of capital markets businesses over the years, and most of them had a very strong technology component." Lime has "phenomenal technology" and a "fantastic technology team," he said.
Citing his "long track record of success in the financial industry," Gorton said in a prepared statement that Wecker will be "instrumental in leading our continuing expansion." Since launching, the firm has grown to the point "where we are touching 5 percent of all volume in U.S. equities daily," said Gorton.
In an interview, Brown observed that the company has "grown so much faster and is handling more volume than we ever thought [possible] and is now of the size where someone like Jeff can organize it better going forward." He added, "It was time for me, for the good of the company, to hand it over to someone with much more experience."
Wecker, former managing director and global head of Lehman Brothers' electronic client services, was appointed chief executive of Chicago-based Townsend in early 2006, shortly after it was acquired by the investment bank. Since he was replaced by chief information officer Stuart Breslow, Wecker said he has been pursuing private investment opportunities, a search that led to his introduction to Gorton and Brown. Townsend was purchased, along with the rest of Lehman's U.S. operations, by Barclays following the firm's September collapse.
A 24-year veteran of the industry, Wecker called Lime a "premier brand in the electronic trading space" with technology that gives its clients execution advantages. Prior to joining Lehman in 1999, he was co-founder and CEO of Caspian Asset Management and worked for 11 years at Goldman Sachs.
Earlier this year, Lime purchased a minority share in the Chicago Board Options Exchange's CBOE Stock Exchange, which rolled out in January 2007 with the backing of LaBranche & Co., Susquehanna International Group, Interactive Brokers Group and Van Der Moolen Specialists. Lime is also an investor in BATS Exchange, which completed its transition from an electronic communications network on Nov. 6.
