BATS Chi-X Europe has released further details of its integration plan for merging the two organisations, revealing a go live date of April 30 and that BATS Europe and Chi-X Europe lit and dark books will continue to be available as separate order books.
The company said it would provide cross-book routing strategies, letting participants access multiple BATS Chi-X Europe lit and dark books via a single order entry. Cross-book routing specifications were currently in development and will be available in January.
BATS Global Markets, the US-based market operator, first entered into a definitive agreement to purchase multilateral trading facility Chi-X Europe in February 2011, but faced delays after the deal was referred to the UKs Competition Commission. The deal received clearance on 24 November.
The newly merged company, a subsidiary of US-based BATS Global Markets, said in a statement late Friday that it anticipated trading fees for the Chi-X Europe lit book and Chi-Delta dark book would remain unchanged. However, post-migration trading fees would be subject to discussion with participants in January and February.
Any changes to pricing for the BATS Europe lit and dark books will be announced in February 2012 and take effect following the completion of the technology migration from 1 May 2012, the company said.
In addition, BATS Chi-X Europe will provide consolidated connectivity pricing on 13 January, which will take effect in May 2012.
The BATS Chi-X Europe integration will create a single regulated platform, meaning the integration will include a re-organisation of the service agreements currently used by Chi-X Europe and BATS Europe. The merged firm will also adopt a single rulebook and participant manual as part of the legal and regulatory integration.
This plan has been developed with one goal in mind to conduct the integration as efficiently as possible to ensure participants can quickly realise the benefits BATS Chi-X Europe will provide, said Mark Hemsley, CEO, BATS Chi-X Europe. This includes cost rationalisation, flexibility, choice and continued price leadership.
The new Chi-X Europe certification environment will be made available from 23 January and on 27 February testing will begin on the new Chi-X Europe production environment. BATS Europe secondary data centre go-live in Equinix on 14 March, ahead of the first dress rehearsal of Chi-X Europe onto BATS technology.
Both Chi-X Europe lit and dark books will go live on BATS technology on the 30 April launch date, with 14 May set up as a go-live contingency date.
BATS Chi-X Europe confirmed that from 6 January 2012, subject to regulatory approval, participants will have a choice of one or more of central counterparty on a market by market basis from EMCF, EuroCCP, LCH.Clearnet and SIX x-clear.
Based on November figures from data vendor Thomson Reuters, BATS Europe and Chi-X Europe combined would have had a pan-European equity market share of 24.8%, making it the largest trading venue in the region.
– Bruce Love, The Tradebruce.love@thetrade.ltd.uk