FTEN Expands Into Europe to Meet Demands for High-Frequency Trading

With high-frequency trading firms expanding their strategies to European financial markets, FTEN is establishing a London-based operation and has hired Valerie Bannert-Thurner to serve as executive director of FTEN Europe Ltd.

Bannert-Thurner joins the firm after establishing the European operations for Skyler Inc., a real-time market data processing company, where she held a variety of executive positions, including head of product strategy, strategic alliances, marketing and business development, according to the company. “We have strong demand from partners who have access in the U.S. and clients that want to expand their strategies to Europe,” said Ted Myerson, founder and CEO OF FTEN in an interview with Advanced Trading.

Over the past eight years, FTEN has built a successful business in the U.S. by serving the majority of the banks in the prime brokerage space that distribute its technology out to the hedge fund and proprietary trading groups, related Myerson. “Now these firms are looking to expanding out to Europe,” he said.

High -requency trading is expanding to Europe as exchanges have begun to offer sponsored access. “Nasdaq and Chi-X have taken the first steps there toward sponsored access in Europe,” explained Bannert-Thurner, who has a B.S.M.E., M.S. and Ph.D. in strategic management from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, ETH Zurich. It’s only in the past couple of months that exchanges and MTFs (multilateral trading facilities) in particular started to offer sponsored access trading, said Bannert-Thurner. “This is very well timed with that trend,” she said, adding, “Our partners are keen to work with a firm that has experience in that area.

Last October, FTEN said that four of the leading Wall Street firms —Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch (now owned by Bank of America) made minority equity investment in the company. At the time, FTEN said the investment would accelerate its global expansion beyond U.S. shores to Europe and Asia. Prime brokers use FTEN to get a real-time global view of their clients, especially high-frequency statistical arbitrage clients.

Ivy is Editor-at-Large for Advanced Trading and Wall Street & Technology. Ivy is responsible for writing in-depth feature articles, daily blogs and news articles with a focus on automated trading in the capital markets. As an industry expert, Ivy has reported on a myriad ... View Full Bio

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