Chi-X Global Inc., a holding company for the regional Chi-X trading platforms,creates new exchange services business unit acquiring Cicada Corp., a provider of low latency data management technologies, customer qualification and compliance software, and other services for financial institutions, exchanges and data vendors.
Substantially all the business and assets of Cicada Corp. will move under Chi-X Globals control. Newly-created unit will be headed by Gregory E. Smith, founder and CEO of Cicada. The new exchange services business will operate separately from Chi-X’s regional trading platforms.
Financial Technology Partners LP and FTP Securities LLC (together “FT Partners”) played the role of exclusive strategic and financial advisor to Cicada in this transaction.
Among leading platforms and services offered by Cicada are Profiler product assisting financial firms in managing their customer qualification process and conduct periodic reviews, data collection, document gathering and other due diligence activities required for anti-money laundering (AML) and “know your customer” (KYC) compliance. And MarketPrizm platform, ASP-based algorithmic trading infrastructure that helps brokerage firms in trading effectively and cost-efficiently within the European markets.
Market centers around the world are today looking to build out their trading infrastructures in order to accommodate the global trading community’s vastly increased demands, and Cicada has clear expertise in this area after having worked with a number of global exchanges on their technology needs, says Tony Mackay, CEO,Chi-X Global. Not only is this development knowledge an extremely complementary fit with the global Chi-X business model, but it also allows us to now offer exchanges and MTFs a proven, scalable and low-cost technology infrastructure.
With this acquisition, Chi-X will be able to continue to innovate with technology advances while expanding its business into new areas by serving the technology needs of exchanges, MTFs and users of these trading venues globally, says Gregory E. Smith, founder and CEO, Cicada.
L.D.