Appital announced an integration with FactSet’s Portware Enterprise Execution Management System (EMS), giving clients access to Appital’s bookbuilding platform. This automates what has traditionally been a highly manual process, while at the same time giving buy-side traders the ability to place very large orders or participate in unique liquidity opportunities.
FactSet’s multi-asset class EMS helps the world’s largest asset managers and hedge funds navigate the challenges of complexity and scale with embedded analytics, decision support, and automation. Sparked by continued demand from these clients, the integration with Appital will offer buy-side clients a more efficient and transparent way to execute large-in-size orders with minimal market impact or risk of price erosion.
Rob Watts, director of Strategy and Product Management, Trading Solutions at FactSet, said in a statement: “The buy-side is constantly looking for innovative ways to optimize execution, and liquidity discovery is crucial for our clients, particularly in less liquid markets. Appital automatically alerts them to new liquidity opportunities within Portware, enabling them to efficiently execute size without information leakage.”
Brian Guckian, chief development officer of Appital, said in a statement: “Our mission is to put buy-side firms in control of their bookbuilding activity. Bringing the bookbuilding process inside the EMS infrastructure with FactSet’s Portware is a significant step forward, reducing the risks inherent in the traditional phone and email processes. They can proactively source liquidity and efficiently drive the bookbuilding process in real time on one automated platform.”
Appital is currently onboarding asset managers onto its platform in preparation for launch in 2022 and has established a working group that includes some of the world’s largest asset managers. The group helps mutual clients define how they want to interact with hard-to-find liquidity in the market and proactively build books of demand, while ensuring that integration to existing workflows remains seamless. EMS providers are now able to code to established, FIX-based protocols for the overall benefit of the buyside community.
Appital has also announced their collaboration with Bernstein and Instinet as executing brokers, and with Turquoise – to offer a single point of access with STP to 20 European settlement venues and with EMS provider FlexTrade.