BUY-SIDE TECHNOLOGY AWARDS: Best buy-side execution venue: Liquidnet

Alternative execution venues have proliferated over the past decade as fragmentation has spread across more conventional liquidity sources. Among these new venues, Liquidnet—once again the winner of Buy-Side Technology’s best execution venue award—has stood out since its inception in 2001 for catering specifically to buy-side institutions.

Nine years on, Liquidnet’s value proposition continues to attract new adherents across the globe. Since June of last year, the firm has signed up 48 new clients in the US, 39 in the UK, eight in Canada and 29 in Asia. Liquidnet’s platform now connects to 36 markets globally, having added six so far in 2010, including Mexico, Lithuania, Estonia, New Zealand and Poland. The venue now claims more than 600 investment managers as clients, and averages €46 billion ($62 billion) of liquidity on a daily basis.

Statistics like these alone bolstered our judging panel’s decision to deem Liquidnet the winner of this category again this year, but the provider’s initiatives to add and enhance services to clients make it an even more formidable contender.

Last year, Liquidnet launched a new service, Supernatural, allowing members the option of executing trades against the venue’s streaming liquidity participants including brokers, exchanges and multilateral trading facilities (MTFs), providing asset managers with more flexibility as to how to achieve best execution. Augmenting core buy-side-to-buy-side execution with additional matching opportunities further solidifies Liquidnet’s status in the industry as the execution venue of choice for buy-side firms. —SE

JUDGE'S COMMENT
Liquidnet has led the way in providing alternatives to traditional venues and is a ‘must have’ for all buy-side traders.

LIQUIDNET REACTION
“Liquidnet is honored to receive this prestigious award for the third year running. Enhancing the quality of trade, gaining price improvement for trades and ultimately lowering overall trading costs is at the core of what we offer to our global community of more than 600 asset management firms. This year, in addition to maintaining the integrity and depth of our liquidity pool, we are proud to be expanding our global footprint and are now offering trading in 37 equities markets, plus London and Luxembourg global depositary receipts (GDRs). We provide access to 100 percent of the MSCI World Index and are the first block-trading venue to offer direct electronic access into a Middle Eastern market with the launch of trading in Israeli securities. We are delighted to receive this award and the recognition from both the industry and our members and look forward to continuing to meet the needs of the global buy-side community.”