Barclays picks Centerview veteran to lead M&A

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April 10, 2025

Andrew Woeber, global head of M&A, Barclays

Barclays has appointed Andrew Woeber as global head of M&A, part of the investment banking management team.

According to Dealogic ratings Barclays ranked 10th in global M&A revenues for March, with US$155 million in revenue over the month and taking 2.5% of the market share.

Based in New York, Woeber reports to global co-heads of investment banking Cathal Deasy and Taylor Wright.

Woeber has more than 25 years of industry experience, most recently serving as a partner at investment banking firm Centerview where he oversaw strategic transactions.

Before joining the company in 2008, Woeber was a managing director at investment bank Greenhill & Co and vice president for mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley.

©Markets Media Europe 2025

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Franck Noel settles at Deloitte

By

Lucy Carter

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April 9, 2025

Franck Noel, head of strategy, risk and transactions, Deloitte

Franck Noel has joined Deloitte as head of strategy, risk and transactions. He is based in Paris.

Noel was most recently head of market structure and strategy at AXA Investment Managers, a role he held for almost five years until his departure in February 2024.

The majority of his more than 25 year career has been spent at Societe Generale, where he held senior FIC roles in Paris and New York. He began his career at Deloitte in 1998.

©Markets Media Europe 2025

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Exchanges contradict own public information, MSP says

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Lucy Carter

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April 9, 2025

Market Structure Partners (MSP) has hit back at exchange claims that its market structure data report is inaccurate.

“There is very little basis for most of the feedback, and many of the comments are surprising given that they are based on, and sometimes contradict, the exchanges’ own publicly available information,” the group stated.

Technical clarifications made by Turquoise, LSE and Euronext around disclosures and reporting methodology have been taken into account, with MSP issuing an updated version of the report.

Statements that LSE no longer has to make regulatory disclosures have been revoked now that they have been provided to MSP. Turquoise disclosures have been replaced with those of the LSE.

A correction has also been made to Euronext’s market data revenue figures, which were reported as part of total group revenue than of total trading revenues.

This iteration includes a series of recommendations on improvements to be made to regulatory disclosures.

“These technical clarifications, however, do not alter the fundamental conclusions of the report,” the group affirmed.

Inconsistent data disclosures across exchanges, a lack of transparency across annual accounts disclosures, and complex, subjective pricing schedules remain key issues, it said.

“The vigorous responses from exchanges to this independent research underscore just how critical the market data pricing issue has become for all participants in European equity markets,” said Mike Bellaro, CEO of Plato Partnership, which co-commissioned the study. “The intensity of debate following the report’s publication only reinforces its significance and the need for a constructive industry-wide dialogue about creating markets that work efficiently for all participants.”

MSP published its ‘No Market in Market Data’ report in February, stating that European exchanges are increasing their data fees out of scale with the changing market. Several exchanges named in the report argued that the claims were misleading and error-ridden, and that pricing was aligned with inflation.

“There is little basis for most of the commentary,” MSP responded.

©Markets Media Europe 2025

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Stewart leads distribution in Nomura EMEA and LatAm push

By

Lucy Carter

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April 8, 2025

Douglas Stewart, EMEA head of distribution, Nomura Asset Management

Nomura Asset Management has appointed Douglas Stewart as EMEA head of distribution.

The business, a subsidiary of Nomura Holdings, holds US$563 billion in assets under management as of year-end 2024.

Based in London, Stewart is responsible for Nomura Asset Management’s distribution strategy across EMEA and Latin America, covering both institutional and intermediary channels.

He reports to Kenichi Suzuki, senior managing director and head of the global business unit.

Stewart has more than two decades of industry experience, most recently serving as head of EMEA for Silicon Valley Bank.

Prior to this he was CEO at asset manager BennBridge, which was acquired by Skerryvore Asset Management in August 2024. Earlier, Stewart was head of EMEA and CEO of OppenheimerFunds. The majority of his career has been spent at AllianceBernstein as managing director of the EMEA client group.

XTX Markets’ profits skyrocket in 2024

By

Lucy Carter

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April 8, 2025

XTX Markets’ profits were up 54% year-on-year (YoY) in 2024, according to a document seen by Global Trading and filed with Companies House.

Revenues rose by 36% over the year to £2.74 billion.

The high-frequency trading firm states that US$250 billion is traded on its platform daily.

Of its three entities registered in the UK, 2024 results have been publicly released for XTX Markets Technologies and XTX Markets Trading. The former reported a 50% rise in revenues over the rear, reaching £2 billion, and a 44% spike in final profits to £1.2 billion.

The trading business reported a more modest £636 million in revenue, up 7% from 2023’s £589.7 million, and £22.5 million in final profits – up 50% YoY.

XTX Markets remains an algo trading minnow compared to big-name Wall Street giants. Citadel Securities reported US$9.7 billion in trading revenues for 2024, Global Trading understands. The majority of similar firms do not disclose their earnings.

To boost its competitive approach, earlier this year, XTX Markets announced that it would invest over €1 billion in a Finnish data centre in order to expand and strengthen its infrastructure. In late 2024, it also invested in Project Numina, an initiative building a mathematical reasoning database to support AI development.

The company has stated its inventions to build out client operations in the US.

©Markets Media Europe 2025

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Deutsche Börse: Quantitative analytics evolution is reshaping data provision

By

GlobalTrading

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April 7, 2025

Markets Media and TraderTV’s Dan Barnes and Stefan Schlamp, Head of Quantitative Analytics at Deutsche Börse discuss how traders can better apply data to their trading strategies.

Kate Burke replaces Sullivan as Allspring CEO

By

Lucy Carter

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April 3, 2025

Kate Burke has been appointed CEO of Allspring Global Investments, effective 1 July.

The North Carolina-based investment firm holds more than US$605 billion in assets under advisement across both equity and fixed income funds.

She replaces Joe Sullivan, who has held the role since 2021. Sullivan will remain active in the company as executive chair of the board.

Burke has more than 20 years of industry experience and has been president at Allspring since September 2023. Prior to this, she spent almost eight years with AllianceBernstein in senior roles including chief operating and chief financial officer.

Earlier in her career, Burke was head of private wealth at Bernstein’s private wealth management business and a managing director at Bernstein Research.

©Markets Media Europe 2025

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big xyt issues last-minute challenge to EuroCTP

By

Lucy Carter

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April 3, 2025

EuroCTP’s appointment as European consolidated tape provider (CTP) is no longer a certainty, with big xyt announcing its entrance into the race.

“A tender, by definition, should involve various candidates. At the moment, we only have one candidate – EuroCTP. That’s not ideal. A lack of competition could be considered as a failure of the overall exercise,” co-founder and CEO of big xyt Robin Mess told Global Trading.

“Additionally, we have been incentivised to take a more active role in the tape based on feedback we’ve received from the industry. They believe that we are well equipped to deliver a tape that doesn’t just reflect the minimum requirements defined by the regulatory framework, but also to implement it in a way that reflects the long-term objectives of the industry,” he added.

EuroCTP was launched by a consortium of 15 European exchange groups, and was previously competing with joint Aquis and Cboe venture SimpliCT to be the tape provider. The latter dropped out of the race earlier this year due to a potential conflict of interest after Aquis was acquired by SIX – part of the EuroCTP project.

READ MORE: SimpliCT drops out of CTP race

ESMA is expected to begin the first phase of selection for the equities CTP in June, with the process running to the end of the year. The tape is scheduled to be authorised in the first half of 2026.

“We don’t want to compare ourselves to EuroCTP, that is up to the regulators,” Mess demurred. “However, we want to emphasise the strengths we can offer.”

He explained that many of the issues the tape will deal with have already been addressed by Big Xyt. “We all know that European markets are fragmented, that there’s no normalised view of trading activity and liquidity in general,” he said. “We have solved that problem, received positive feedback from our clients, and seen great retention.”

He also highlights the firm’s independence when compared to its competitor. “Until last year we were 100% employee owned, and our recent investor is a minority shareholder based in Europe. That means we’re completely free of any conflict of interest, and that we can more easily contribute to the objectives of the overall market. rather than only representing specific segments or firms.

“When preparing the bid we have to design a capital and governance structure that ensures long-term sustainability. We don’t want to expose the CTP to a single segment or firm – including, of course, our own.”

The firm also stresses its capital-light structure and ability to scale solutions using cloud-native technology.

Big xyt states that it is backed by industry firms, but has not yet named these entities. “It’s a work in progress,” Mess shared. “We will work hard on the ownership structure, the capital structure and the governance. Once we have formalised that with the backers, we will announce the stakeholders.”

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CME Group shutters proprietary chat service, onboards Symphony

By

Lucy Carter

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April 3, 2025

CME Group has replaced its proprietary CME Chat messaging service with Symphony’s communications platform.

The transition was announced to clients on 25 February, and went into effect 1 April. While CME Chat is no longer available, the implementation of Symphony’s solution is not scheduled until the second half of the year.

Compliance files from CME Chat will be accessible until 31 August.

CME Group stated that the change has been made to improve efficiency and strengthen collaboration workflows for users.

At year-end 2024, Symphony reported more than 600,000 users across 1,300 institutions worldwide. Over the year, the number of monthly active users on flagship compliance product federation increased by 60% year on year, it said. The number of messages sent was up 115%.

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Cboe resurrects European central SFT clearing

By

Lucy Carter

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April 2, 2025

Cboe Clear Europe has launched European securities financing transactions (SFT) clearing services for cash equities and ETFs.

SFTs are traditionally carried out bilaterally.

Plans for the service were first announced in June 2023, with ABN AMRO Clearing Bank, Bank of America, Barclays, Citibank, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan signing on as borrower participants last April. At the same time, BNY Mellon, Citibank and State Street committed to be agent lenders on the platform.

Regulatory approval was secured in November 2024.

The service has been developed in light of regulatory changes including the Central Securities Depositories Regulation (CSDR), Securities Financing Transactions Regulation (SFTR), and Basel Endgame.

In October 2023, the International Securities Lending Association (ISLA) published a paper suggesting that central clearing could be a solution for funds to meet regulatory requirements around Basel Endgame.

“Utilising a central counterparty (CCP) for SFTs requires parties to become members of the CCP, which has both initial costs as well as ongoing fees, although it can reduce the risk weight of the counterparty to 2%,” it said.

“New capital requirements are prompting banks to seek solutions to lower their risk-weighted exposures to borrowers and agent lenders,” observed Jan Treuren, SFT product lead. “Our model meets a demand that has not existed previously.”

Cboe is not the first to explore the potential of central clearing in this space. In 2021, Eurex Clearing closed its European securities lending CCP after eight years of operation. The service covered fixed income, equities and ETFs.

Introducing a central clearing model will improve the capital efficiency of SFTs, Cboe stated, particularly in risk-weighted assets. The company added that the service will facilitate cross-margining savings between cash equities and SFTs, improve settlement efficiency, and improve fee management and corporate action practices.

“While the initial focus is on European cash equities and ETFs, the underlying technology is highly scalable and positions us to expand the service globally and into other asset classes. We’re already thinking about fixed income, other lendable assets and additional client jurisdictions in the next phase,” Treuren said.

The service also offers a ‘special participant’ category, with required value (RQV) models developed on a case-by-case basis. This allows beneficial owners to join the CCP without paying margin or contributing to the default fund.

UCITS and non-UCITS clients are able to become direct members of the CCP, removing the need for agent-lender disclosures to be provided to borrowers, Treuren explained. “This will significantly streamline a previously labour-intensive process,” he asserted.

BNY and JP Morgan act as tri-party collateral agents on the platform, with pre- and post-trade and collateral services firm Pirum transmitting clients’ new trade instructions and post-trade lifecycle events. The latter also acted as a service provider for Eurex’s iteration of the service.

Natixis CIB and JP Morgan were the first to use the service as principal lender and borrower, respectively. Cboe indicated that other market participants, covering banks, asset managers, broker-dealers and agent lenders, are also soon to join the platform.

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Barclays has appointed Andrew Woeber as global head of M&A, part of the investment banking management team.

Franck Noel has joined Deloitte as head of strategy, risk and transactions. He is based in Paris.

Market Structure Partners (MSP) has hit back at exchange claims that its market structure data report is inaccurate.

Nomura Asset Management has appointed Douglas Stewart as EMEA head of distribution.

XTX Markets’ profits were up 54% year-on-year (YoY) in 2024, according to a document seen by Global Trading and filed with Companies House.

Kate Burke has been appointed CEO of Allspring Global Investments, effective 1 July.

EuroCTP’s appointment as European consolidated tape provider (CTP) is no longer a certainty, with big xyt announcing its entrance into the race.

CME Group has replaced its proprietary CME Chat messaging service with Symphony’s communications platform.

Cboe Clear Europe has launched European securities financing transactions (SFT) clearing services for cash equities and ETFs.

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