i-Deal, a financial services software company that provides workflow solutions to participants in the equity new-issues market, announced the launch of its new broker-to-broker platform, Syndicate Connect, a Web-based application that allows the broker-dealer community to share information on syndicated transactions more freely and efficiently than has previously been possible.
At the same time, i-Deal announced that lead managers Merrill Lynch and Citigroup used Syndicate Connect and i-Deal Equity to successfully manage last week's initial public offering of Halfords Group plc, the UK's largest retailer of car and cycle accessories. The global offering of 100 million shares priced at GBP2.60.
"This is the first time there has been a global joint-book equity offering with instantaneous communication instead of the traditional more arduous message processing and exchanging of orders," Paul Lucas, Managing Director and Head of i-Deal's London office, said. "i-Deal Equity is the first global book-building system that enables lead managers to exchange information instantly, to have an accurate picture of their inventory and orders, and to mitigate risk of order duplication by using a common and unique institutional account identifier."
Cazenove and UBS Securities joined the lead managers in the transaction and used Syndicate Connect to enter orders for their customers and to monitor the deal.
"We're glad that two more leading investment houses have had the opportunity to experience Syndicate Connect's unprecedented capabilities as a real-time global book-building system for co-leads, and we expect many more to partake of the system's benefits in the future," said Lucas.
David Bozett, Equity Product Manager for i-Deal, said that the broker-dealer community will benefit from direct access via the internet. "Users needn't install any hardware or software, and are ready to send orders and receive allotments immediately," he said.
"The previous means of sharing information between syndicate members in the capital raising process - typically some combination of telephone, fax, e-mail, and telex - tends to be very inefficient," Frank LaQuinta, Co-Head of Capital Markets at i-Deal, said. "Syndicate Connect is now transforming the way brokers communicate with one another in the Syndicate by allowing them to share information in real time over the Internet."