US trading technology vendor Nyfix has launched its Euro Millennium platform, a UK regulated multi-lateral trading facility (MTF) for non-displayed liquidity in pan-European listed cash equities.
Nyfix says Credit Suisse Advanced Execution Services (AES) was the first client to match a live trade on the new dark liquidity platform, which is based on its established US dark liquidity system, Millennium. Citi was also amongst the early users of the ATS.
The European platform was originally scheduled for release in Q4 2007 but launch was delayed and the New York vendor has incurred increasing pre-operating start-up costs for the London-based venture. The vendor incurred costs of $2 million in the fourth quarter of 2007 for Euro Millennium - up from 1.3 million in Q3 - bringing the total start-up costs incurred for the year to $4 million.
in today's statement Nyfix says Euro Millennium currently matches UK-listed equities and will be rolling out other major European markets over the course of 2008. The vendor has recruited French banking group BNP Paribas to provide pan-European post trade services for Euro Millennium.
Commenting on the launch, Nyfix CEO, Howard Edelstein, says: "Euro Millennium was designed to provide our European client base with a service that offers an ability to deploy new trading strategies across Europe by tapping into a new pool of liquidity."
Nyfix is also working with SWX Europe to jointly deliver a non-displayed block trading service for Swiss blue-chip equities using the Euro Millennium platform.