Trading Technologies International (TT), a global capital markets technology platform provider, has agreed to acquire Abel Noser Solutions (ANS), a provider of transaction cost analysis (TCA) for investment managers, brokers, asset owners and consultants, from Abel Noser Holdings, a majority-owned portfolio company of Estancia Capital Partners.
Terms of the transaction, expected to close on August 31, were not disclosed.
According to TT CEO Keith Todd, TCA has an influence on important factors, including achieving best execution and evaluating broker performance.
“It is absolutely essential for the buy-side,” the told Traders Magazine.
“While we have an impressive list of buy-side clients, many of those relationships are through the sell-side. This transaction brings us closer than ever to that audience,” he said.
Todd said that Abel Noser, which has been around for over 30 years, has really strong, direct relationships with buy-side clients – including some of the largest in the world – because “they’ve learned they can trust the integrity of the data and reliability of the analytics”.
“We have no intention of disintermediating our distribution clients; on the contrary, we can strengthen those relationships with many of the tools we now have to offer,” he added.
The acquisition represents TT’s extension into the multi-asset data and analytics space, further building on its expansion into new asset classes.
According to Todd, when TT set out in early 2022 on this journey to become “the operating system of capital markets”, they stated their intention to consolidate their position in derivatives, expand into new asset classes and build on their relationships with the buy-side.
“Our expansion deeper into the data and analytics space through this acquisition of Abel Noser is a core component of this strategy,” he stressed.
“Mainly, it puts us into the equities space with a mature TCA solution, and it brings us closer than ever to the buy side with a large roster of direct buy-side customers,” he said.
Todd further said that Abel Noser has a strong presence in equities and fixed income in particular and a growing presence in FX, but not yet in derivatives.
“In contrast, while we have an incredibly established offering in listed derivatives, we just this year began building our fixed income offering through the AxeTrading acquisition and created the TT FX business unit. So this acquisition is truly complementary to us,” he said.
As a result of the acquisition, Abel Noser’s TCA and regulatory services will be made available to TT clients.
Abel Noser’s clients will be able to leverage the comprehensive services and functionality of the TT platform.
Over time, Abel Noser’s analytics will be integrated into the TT platform.
In addition, TT will acquire START, a broker-neutral trade optimization platform, from Abel Noser in a second transaction, expected to close by the first quarter of 2024.
“The reason we’re acquiring START in a separate acquisition is that we need to meet some regulatory hurdles in registering TT as a broker-dealer so we can operate under the appropriate regulations to take commercial fees in the securities markets on a per-transaction basis,” Todd explained.
“START is effectively an algo product. Once that is aligned and integrated with the RCM-X products we have expanded and incorporated into our suite of algorithmic tools, we’ll have significantly built on our algo capabilities in the equities space, and we’ll be able to offer additional algos that are used by Abel Noser’s many buy-side clients,” he added.
Todd further said: “You can expect to see some other exciting developments from us in the data and analytics space that leverage a vast well of yet-unused data, in addition to a range of new partnerships that further enhance our cross-asset capability.”
