BIDS Trading Connects to Charles River Development’s Investment Management System
NEW YORK, NY – September 24, 2008 – BIDS Trading, the alternative trading system (ATS) designed to increase competition and liquidity in the U.S. equity block trading market, and Charles River Development, an award-winning provider of technology systems and services for the global investment management community, today announced that connectivity has been established between their electronic trading platforms.
Through this partnership, current users of the Charles River Investment Management System (Charles River IMS) can now easily and anonymously route orders to BIDS Trading’s block trading platform; executing blocks of U.S. equities with little to no market impact. The partnership reaffirms both companies’ commitment to offer open and comprehensive electronic trading solutions, focused on helping traders reduce costs and risk, as well as increase operational efficiency in a secure environment.
“This integration is a major initiative in our continual support to help traders streamline workflow and facilitate best execution,” said Tom Driscoll, Vice President, Sales and Marketing, Charles River Development. “Charles River IMS offers clients a central conduit to all liquidity pools across all asset classes. Our clients can connect with a host of international destinations – and their choices now include the BIDS ATS.”
“This connection furthers our efforts to create an open, efficient marketplace to anonymously trade blocks of U.S. equities,” said Tim Mahoney. “Connecting Charles River IMS’s global client base to the BIDS ATS allows users to anonymously access additional liquidity and helps us continue to deliver on our promise to offer the broadest participation and deepest liquidity pool possible.”
The BIDS ATS is accessible to both buy-side and sell-side firms that want to trade large blocks through continuous order matching and trade negotiation. Use of the BIDS ATS as a block trading service is not exclusive or subject to volume commitment and each participant may continue to use any ATS, ECN or exchange service that supports the trading needs of its customer base.
Volume on the BIDS ATS has reached more than 6.4 billion shares* since its launch in 2007.
Media Contacts
Caroline Bujak, BIDS Trading, L.P.
Email: caroline.bujak@bidstrading.com
Tel: +1.212.618.2097
Stephanie DiIorio, Intermarket Communications
Email: sdiiorio@intermarket.com
Tel: +1.212.754.5181
Marta von Loewenfeldt, Charles River Development
Email: martavonLoewenfeldt@crd.com
Tel: +1.781.425.3032
About BIDS Trading
BIDS Trading, L.P. is a registered broker-dealer and the operator of the BIDS Trading Alternative Trading System (ATS), which was designed to bring counterparties together to anonymously trade large blocks of shares. Developed by a consortium of leading financial services firms, the BIDS Trading ATS resolves the classic paradox of the block trader – the need to find legitimate trading counterparties without prematurely revealing trading intentions. The BIDS Trading ATS is open to all qualifying broker-dealers and their institutional clients, subject to basic credit and regulatory requirements. For more information, visit www.bidstrading.com
About Charles River Development
Charles River Development is an award-winning provider of technology systems and services to over 300 investment firms in the institutional, mutual fund, banking, hedge fund, wealth management, insurance and pension industries. The Charles River Investment Management System is a comprehensive front- and middle-office software suite for all asset classes that includes: Charles River Manager for portfolio management and modeling; Charles River Trader for order management and electronic trading; Charles River Compliance for real-time pre-trade and end-of-day compliance; and Charles River Post-Trade for the centralized management of trade matching, confirmation, and settlement workflow. The system incorporates global real-time electronic trading via FIX (Financial Information eXchange) through the broker-neutral Charles River Network that is fully integrated with Charles River IMS.
Charles River IMS features a modern, proven, N-Tier service oriented architecture (SOA) that is highly scalable and supports continuous 24×7 operations. Message-based APIs and exposed Web Services facilitate rapid systems integration.
The company also offers implementation and managed services (hosted and remote application management). Founded in 1984, Charles River maintains headquarters in Boston and primary offices in London, Melbourne, New York, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo.
Charles River is the recipient of numerous recent industry awards including: Best Buy-Side Order Management System, TradeTech 2008, 2007; European Front Office IT Company of the Year, Funds Europe 2007 Awards; Best Buy-Side Order Management System and Best Integrated Front-Office Platform, Buy-Side Technology 2007 Awards; Best Portfolio Management System, Waters Reader Rankings 2007; and FinTech Top 100, American Banker/Financial Insights 2007.
*Figures are double-counted, to include all volume traded on the BIDS Trading ATS (i.e., both sides of the transaction).
BIDS Trading and the BIDS Trading mark are protected in the United States and in countries throughout the world.