Electronic Specialist, LLC (ESP) announced today that Jefferies & Company, Inc. has completed the integration of Jefferies’ suite of algorithms with ESP’s Electronic Algorithm Routing Network (EARN), which provides buy-side institutions with access to more than 50 algorithms, crossing networks, exchanges and ECNs, directly and anonymously, through one seamless gateway.
The EARN portal, available through ESP’s Global Direct Market Access Network and more than a dozen integrated industry-leading trading applications and OMSs, features such strategies as VWAP, TWAP, Volume Participation, Implementation Shortfall, Smart Order Routing, Pairs Trading, and a variety of other algorithmic strategies that are unique to each participating broker on the Portal.
“Now clients across ESP’s network, which include hedge funds, pension funds, mutual funds, investment managers and broker/dealers, can access Jefferies’ algorithms through any of the integrated trading applications that we support,” said Scott Kurland, Senior Managing Director of Electronic Specialist. “Jefferies is a known leader in execution services to both buy and sell-side clients, and the addition of Jefferies’ algorithmic suite to EARN” brings a number of leading strategies that we believe will add value to our institutional customers who are looking to achieve better Alpha, reduce slippage, and access liquidity.”
Jefferies, a global investment bank and institutional securities firm, has served growing and mid-sized companies and their investors for over 40 years. Headquartered in New York, with more than 20 offices around the world, Jefferies is a leading provider of trade execution in equity, high yield, convertible and international securities for institutional investors and high net worth individuals. The Jefferies algorithms available through EARN include VWAP, VOLUME, STRIKE (an implementation shortfall strategy), and SEEK (a smart-routing liquidity finder).
“In today’s transparent market environment, broker-neutral solutions are increasingly popular among our institutional customers,” commented John C. Shaw, III, Head of Portfolio Trading at Jefferies. “As a strategic partner, ESP provides Jefferies with an excellent opportunity to expand client access to our algorithms in a flexible and integrated manner that will broaden the customer base of both firms.”
EARN allows institutions to remain anonymous when sending large order blocks or lists to multiple algorithms and crossing networks. The portal can minimize market impact by allowing clients to spread orders simultaneously across a number of providers, execution venues, and algorithms.
One of the major benefits that ESP provides is centralized clearing, settlement and delivery across all market destinations, crossing networks, and algorithms, so clients get the added benefit of having their Jefferies trade executions aggregated with all their other electronic executions, and delivered as a single or allocated block trade. ESP has also signed a clearing relationship with Jefferies Correspondent Clearing Services Group.