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Nyfix CEO on European Expansion, FIX Extension
June 16, 2008
Electronic trading solutions provider Nyfix is enjoying an eventful year. With six months remaining on the calendar, the New York-based company has already hit a milestone, made an acquisition and launched a hidden liquidity venue in Europe.
Nyfix Millennium, a U.S. dark pool that has been in operation for seven years, set a new record in January, matching over 1.2 billion shares, or nearly 58 million per day. In April, Nyfix announced that it had acquired London-based FIXCity, a technology vendor whose flagship product, ioinet, is used by over 120 institutions, including 70 buy-side European firms, for indications-of-interest analysis, filtering and alerting.
But Nyfix's most anticipated move thus far was the March opening of its London-based dark book, Euro Millennium, which was built on the same technology as its U.S. affiliate. "We have quite a bit of liquidity going through now," says Nyfix CEO Howard Edelstein. "People are coming on, the market in Europe for non-displayed trading is growing, and we're on track with our expectations."
Edelstein, previously an entrepreneur in residence at Warburg Pincus, became head of Nyfix in September 2006, when the well-known private equity firm invested $75 million--a stake of approximately 30 percent--and replaced then CEO Robert Gasser. Edelstein, whose first stint with Warburg Pincus ran from 2002 to 2003, had returned to the firm in February 2006. Edelstein is credited with engineering a business turnaround at financial extranet operator Radianz that ultimately led to its April 2005 acquisition by BT Group. In September 2005, Edelstein was made president and CEO of a newly created unit, BT Global Financial Services, but left after a few months.
In an interview with Securities Industry News senior editor Alexa Jaworski, Edelstein, who has also been chief executive of Thomson Financial ESG, a predecessor of post-trade communications provider Omgeo, detailed the company's biggest moves in 2008. He also discussed Nyfix's recent unveiling of the latest version of its Appia FIX engine, which was on display at the Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association's Technology Management Conference in New York last week.
What are some of the highlights of the latest version of the Appia FIX engine? As the market has evolved to a point where higher volumes and a desire for faster responses are the rule of the day, what has become most important is efficiency, speed and reliability. To that end, the latest version of Appia is a full generation ahead of the last version and includes significant performance enhancements to reduce latency and enable higher message throughput capabilities. Appia v5 also includes enhanced flexibility for easier integration with existing trading applications and networks, enabling fast installation and enterprisewide deployments across multiple asset classes, desks and countries. Finally, this latest version includes a new dynamic load balancing feature and increased high-availability options to ensure immediate failover protection for uninterrupted trading.
Any other developments that users of your FIX trading products should expect to see in the coming months? We're seeing participants in the Nyfix Marketplace, our FIX-enabled global trading community, use the protocol more and more for other asset classes. Although Nyfix is known primarily for equities, we are starting to see clients use [our products] for other asset classes that are becoming electronic and automated. Our clients have come to expect leadership from us in evolving our products to the ongoing developments with FIX--and electronic trading in general--and this is something we will certainly continue to deliver. As an example of our leadership position and expertise in FIX, we run more than 30 FIX training classes a year for some of the top institutions in the world. For Nyfix, it's not just about providing software, it's about software and a suite of training and professional services that ensure our clients get the most out of their investments in FIX.
