Appital and Turquoise Partner to Launch a Bookbuilding Platform

Appital, the equity capital markets technology solution, and Turquoise, the pan-European MTF, majority owned by London Stock Exchange Group, have launched Appital Turquoise BookBuilder.

This is the first buyside to buyside bookbuilding platform to give institutional investors the opportunity to proactively source liquidity. By bringing a historically highly manual and opaque process into an automated, electronic platform, they gain control over the entire bookbuilding process.

The European trading team of the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, Norges Bank Investment Management, has successfully originated and executed the first trade, through a series of bilateral transactions.

The EMS vendors connected at the time of first trade include Flextrade, Factset's Portware and TS Imagine. The deal executed successfully using Turquoise, with Bernstein as the executing broker. Multiple global asset managers participated as part of a series of bilateral transactions.

Mark Badyra, CEO of Appital, noted:"The launch of Appital Turquoise BookBuilder represents a step change for the asset management industry in the way they unlock and proactively drive liquidity in the market, ushering in a new era of automation in equity markets. From today, the buyside community has greater exposure to deal flow opportunities they have not been able to access before, and investors can interact with like-minded institutions in the liquidity and price formation process."

Dr Robert Barnes, Group Head of Securities Trading & CEO Turquoise Global Holdings at London Stock Exchange Group, commented:"Appital Turquoise BookBuilder delivers the next significant efficiency for asset managers and contributors of capital. Where bookbuilding is the appropriate mechanism to find the right price for large block trades, Appital Turquoise BookBuilder innovates with the world's first automation of buyside bookbuilding seamlessly integrating STP trading to settlement."