Thomson TradeWeb, part of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX: TOC), a leading global provider of integrated information solutions to professional customers, announced today that LaSalle Financial Services, Inc., an affiliate of ABN AMRO (NYSE: ABN), has gone live as a liquidity provider for TradeWeb's growing online corporate bond marketplace.
The firm is an active market maker in a wide range of credit sectors and has extensive relationships with institutional credit investors. ABN AMRO's vast global experience is playing a major factor in continuing the rapid development of its U.S. based corporate bond franchise. The firm already provides liquidity over TradeWeb for U.S. Treasuries, Agencies, European Government Bonds, SUPRAS, Pfandbriefe, and Interest Rate Swaps online markets. ABN AMRO is also a member of TradeWeb's initial credit default swaps dealer group.
TradeWeb's momentum in adding dealer liquidity to its online corporate bond marketplace continues to build. Since the beginning of 2005, LaSalle Financial Services, Wachovia Securities, Piper Jaffray, and Jefferies & Co. have all begun providing liquidity for their corporate bond customers over TradeWeb. The other ten members of TradeWeb's corporate bond dealer group include Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, UBS Investment Bank, and FTN Financial. With this deep pool of dealer liquidity, TradeWeb customers regularly achieve hit rates (the proportion of trade inquiries that result in an execution) of greater than 70%.
"We are very pleased that LaSalle Financial Services has chosen to provide its customers liquidity over TradeWeb Corporates," said Billy Hult, Managing Director at Thomson TradeWeb. "It affirms that TradeWeb, with its superior functionality, deep liquidity, low cost, and strong buy-side account base, provides dealers with a compelling value. LaSalle Financial Services also provides investors with another excellent source of liquidity for corporate bonds."
John Koudounis, Managing Director and Head of LaSalle Financial Services' Taxable Fixed Income unit commented, "LaSalle Financial Services' participation in TradeWeb's online corporate bond marketplace further signifies our commitment to providing customers with the most efficient trading and processing available today. TradeWeb provides us with a world class technological foundation for growth as we expand our customer franchise in the U.S. corporate bond market."
The momentum of TradeWeb Corporates continues to build as institutional investors benefit from its expanding set of motivated corporate bond dealers, introduction of new functionality, and proven low cost business model. In fact, TradeWeb Corporates 3rd quarter volume increased by 177% over the previous quarter.
Over the next few days, TradeWeb Corporates will be launching online trading and processing for floating rate corporate bonds. Also, TradeWeb will be launching its online market for trading credit default swap index products later this month.