Liquidnet has announced that it has signed 12 European firms to provide liquidity for its Supernatural offering, which is scheduled to begin pilot testing next month.
Supernatural, which is already available in the US, was approved by the FSA in August. Pilot testing with a select group of Members will begin in October with a full launch to members when the pilot concludes. Supernatural will bring additional actionable liquidity to its buy-side member community in Europe, providing them with the option to execute orders against flow from Streaming Liquidity Participants (SLPs) such as brokers, exchanges, and MTFs. Liquidnet Supernatural will offer memberswho are exclusively buy-side firmsthe ability to achieve execution on more of their orders, without comprising anonymity, information protection or market impact.
The Streaming Liquidity Participants that have signed with Liquidnet include Chi-X Europe, NYSE Euronext, NYSE Arca Europe, Instinet, BATS Europe, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Sanford Bernstein, CA Cheuvreux, and Nasdaq OMX Europe.
John Barker, Managing Director of Liquidnet in Europe, said: Were excited to launch Supernatural in Europe and bring our buy-side members additional actionable liquidity from some of Europes most successful MTFs, exchanges, and agency brokers. Our focus has, and always will be, the buy side. Our members are the biggest and best names in European funds management. They will get first-look, protected access to a large and growing percentage of order flow with the opportunity for price improvement for all participants.
Supernatural is already a hit in the US, and we expect to mirror that success in Europe in the future, Barker continued. Supernatural will offer a menu of strategies to intelligently seek out and deliver liquidity directly to Liquidnets buy-side members, taking away the need to fragment their order amongst multiple external venues. This will allow Liquidnet members to fill more of their orders, more of the time, all auto-executed at the mid. Were giving buy-side traders the liquidity they need, when they need it, without compromising their anonymity or markedly moving the market.
Hirander Misra, COO of Chi-X Europe, one of the firms interconnecting with Liquidnet, commented: We are delighted to further extend our Chi-Vision liquidity consolidation service by connecting to Liquidnet Europe, and at the same time welcome Liquidnet Europe as a Chi-X Europe trading participant. This agreement brings together two complementary business models, since Chi-X Europe provides rapid price discovery as Europes most liquid MTF and Liquidnet Europe brings a reputation as the leading market for block-size liquidity discovery.