Instinet has secured full membership on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), effective as of today.
The firm has also opened a new sales and trading office in the city’s financial center and has named Nick McDonald, currently Instinet’s head of Asian Equities, as its managing director.
With the membership, Instinet can now offer its full suite of global execution services including its alternative trading platforms, global algorithms and execution management systems to Singaporean trading and investment institutions. From today, Instinet will be able to service local fund managers’ domestic trading requirements directly as a member of the SGX.
“Instinet has made a considerable investment in our technology, people and presence in Asia, and continues to do so as evidenced by today’s announcement and last month’s announcement concerning our membership of the Australian Securities Exchange. We believe the ongoing unbundling movement in Asia positions a firm like ours extremely well, and are thrilled to expand our regional footprint with someone as qualified as Nick at the helm,” says Joseph Marchal, president and managing director, Instinet Asia.
“We are extremely excited about the opportunities that our presence in Singapore presents to both our global client base and the Singaporean investment community. Singapore is an extremely sophisticated financial market, and as such, we believe that investment managers here will find great value in Instinet’s advanced suite of trading tools and the liquidity of 1,500 of the world’s largest institutions that we offer, adds McDonald, managing director, Instinet Singapore Services Pte.
In his new role, McDonald will continue to oversee Instinet’s Asian product offerings, though will no longer serve as head of Asian Equities. Rafi Mohideen has been promoted to head of Asia Equities, ex-Japan, and Toshikazu Taniyama has been promoted to head of Japanese Equities. Both will report directly to McDonald.