Group Co.
Dash’s Maragos Talks Merger, Market Share and Structure
Traders Magazine Online News, March 2, 2017
Dash Financial announced Wednesday that that it has completed its merger with LiquidPoint (Convergex's Options Trading and Technology business) to create Dash Financial Technologies. Private equity firm GTCR, which facilitated the transaction, is the majority owner of the new firm. Peter Maragos, CEO of Dash Financial Technologies, discussed the acquisition and other market topics with Traders Magazine editor John D’Antona Jr. Peter Maragos
Traders Magazine: Dash recently finalized its merger with the LiquidPoint options business from Convergex. What was the impetus for that deal and what is the vision for the new Dash?
Maragos: There were several factors that drove the deal, but probably the three biggest were the fact that we were able to pick up a hugely impressive team, some very sophisticated technology, and some product assets that augmented our existing offering incredibly well. With the deal now finalized and our firm rebranded as Dash Financial Technologies, we’re able to go to market with a suite of high performance solutions that is unmatched in its breadth. We now have products targeted to the Buy Side, Sell Side and Exchange communities that fall into four distinct categories: Trading Technologies, Execution Services, Analytics and Regulatory Technologies. We genuinely believe we are ushering in the technology-enabled brokerage model of the future that is based on transparency, performance and customization – we’re extremely excited about the opportunity we have.
Traders Magazine: At the time of the deal announcement you talked about “unlocking the potential of both businesses” – what exactly did you mean by that?
Maragos: Most broker dealers today are really technology companies first and foremost, at least that’s the case with us. We operate as a broker in order to be compensated transactionally but for all intents and purposes we’re a tech company. And for technology firms the name of the game is scale, as that allows us to better service our clients and better reward our employees and shareholders. Dash and Liquidpoint on their own were fine businesses, but by combining we now execute 13% of the US options market and route an additional 20% of the overall market volume through the BrokerPoint and BLAZE floor broker workstation products. The scale of the combined business opens so many new avenues to us, several of which we’re already actively pursuing.
Traders Magazine: You mention your options market share and growing equities share. Where does the equities business stand today? Has moving from options into equities been easier or harder than expected?
Maragos: We basically launched our equities business two years ago and have seen that business grow considerably since. We signed a handful of very large institutions in the second half of last year as both options and equities clients, and expect those to have a meaningful impact on our volumes as they begin ramping up with us.
For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:
Comments (0)