Banks boost ICAP’s Traiana with $36 million investment
Traiana has helped boost the foreign exchange industry in recent years, say user banks
Interdealer broker ICAP has raised $36 million through the sale of a 12% stake in its Traiana post-trade processing and risk management business to a consortium of banks – Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays, Citi, Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan, Nomura, and the Royal Bank of Scotland.
The banks also have an option to invest up to $82.5 million by taking a further 20% of the equity. The money will be used to develop the Traiana operation, which provides global banks, broker/dealers, buy side firms and trading platforms with services to automate post-trade processing and risk management of financial transactions in listed and over-the-counter trading markets.
Michael Spencer, chief executive of ICAP Group said: “ICAP recognised the strategic value of Traiana early, invested in its growth and it has now become a central infrastructure company within the global FX industry. We are extremely pleased to have many of ICAP’s top customers partner with us in Traiana and look forward to working with them to develop several new Traiana initiatives.”
As part of the agreement a new board of directors has been set up, led by Traiana founder and executive chairman, Gil Mandelzis. The board includes Traiana’s chief executive, Andy Coyne, and a representative from each of the investing banks.
“This investment marks another important milestone in solidifying our partnership with the leading players in the industry. It creates a platform for Traiana to continue to innovate and transform the markets we serve and make global markets more robust for our customers and their clients,” said Mandelzis. “We are thrilled the banks have invested in Traiana and, together, we will expand our offering further.”
The role of Traiana in the growth of the the FX industry was emphasised by the participating banks. Troy Rohrbaugh, global head of FX & Rates Trading at JP Morgan, said: “Traiana’s technology assisted the FX industry in lowering the cost of processing transactions, which helped to make the $4 trillion of daily volumes that you see today a reality. With its focus now expanding to a broad range of over-the-counter and listed markets, we expect the industry to gain further from their experience.”
