Velocity Clearing announced it’s entered into a prime brokerage services referral agreement with Raymond James Financial. The agreement allows for Raymond James institutional sales and sales traders to introduce Velocity Prime Brokerage Services to their institutional client base of hedge funds and other professional fund managers.
The offering includes core custody, clearance and settlement, financing and securities lending that can complement the premier equity research, analyst access and corporate access offered by Raymond James.
“Velocity’s Prime Brokerage offering is a meaningful value-add option for our institutional client partnerships,” said David De Luca, global head of Equities for Raymond James, in a statement. “We are impressed with Velocity’s differentiated and boutique client service model, its access to multiple balance sheets and product mix and the firm’s deep expertise in securities lending.”
Brian Schaeffer, president of Velocity Clearing, said in a statement, “Our agreement allows institutional investors to custody assets directly with Velocity, or on an introduced basis with other clearing firms we partner with. Our management team of industry veterans has deep experience in Prime Brokerage coupled with consulting expertise geared towards private fund managers. Our focus will be on providing high quality, high touch service to institutional clients. The team and technology that Robert Kalaf, COO & Head of Prime Services, has built will be a differentiator in the PB marketplace.”
Velocity Clearing is a self-clearing broker-dealer serving correspondents, prime brokerage clients, active retail traders, emerging hedge funds and other market participants. The firm began in 2003 providing locates on hard-to-borrow securities, and now offers institutions and sophisticated traders a full, tech-enabled ecosystem for securities locates, borrowing, executing, clearing, custody and financing.