Chi-X Europe Limited, operator of the first live, pan-European, equity multilateral trading facility (MTF) today announced that on Thursday 17 July 2008 Merrill Lynch’s smart order router had executed in excess of one hundred million shares on Chi-X Europe.
“Since launching sixteen months ago, we have been pleased to see a steady growth in the number of orders and number of trades executed on Chi-X Europe,” says Peter Randall, CEO of Chi-X Europe. “We are delighted that Merrill Lynchs smart order router has chosen to execute so many shares on Chi-X Europe and believe this a great testimonial to our claim that we are faster, cheaper and smarter than executing on the underlying exchanges.”
“As the EMEA markets fragment, we have invested heavily in our proprietary smart order routing technology to ensure we continue to deliver best execution for our clients,” says Yvonne Hansmann MD and head EMEA execution sales at Merrill Lynch. “We are one of the few brokers in Europe to offer comprehensive smart order routing which we estimate is saving clients in excess of 3 basis points of market impact. As new platforms come on line we are integrating them into our smart order routing platform to ensure we remain the broker of choice for best execution.”