This Week: BlackRock/Preqin, Trading Technologies, FIA Tech and more

BlackRock to acquire Preqin

BlackRock has agreed to acquire Preqin, a UK-based provider of private markets data for £2.55 billion ($3.2 billion) in cash. Preqin’s data and research tools and Aladdin’s workflow capabilities will be united in a single platform to create a private markets technology and data provider. The sale marks a strategic expansion for BlackRock, which is building a private markets franchise, into the private markets data segment.

Private markets are the fastest growing segment of asset management, with alternative assets expected to reach nearly $40 trillion by the end of the decade.

With a 20-year history, Preqin is an independent data solutions provider in private markets with global coverage of 190,000 funds, 60,000 fund managers and 30,000 private markets investors, reaching more than 200,000 users, including asset managers, insurers, pensions, wealth managers, banks, and other service providers.

Through the Aladdin platform, BlackRock provides technology solutions to more than 1,000 clients. The combination of Preqin with eFront, Aladdin’s private markets solution, brings together the data, research, and investment process for fund managers and investors across fundraising, deal sourcing, portfolio management, accounting, and performance. Preqin will also continue to be offered as a standalone solution.

The transaction is expected to close before year-end 2024, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

BNP Paribas expands engagement with CobaltFX

BNP Paribas, an early adopter of CobaltFX’s Dynamic Credit, has expanded its engagement with CobaltFX, part of United Fintech, to address regulatory and industry concerns.

Following the onboarding of Dynamic Credit, BNP Paribas has expanded the solution to streamline the allocation of credit for foreign exchange transactions between banks and improve access to liquidity. Now covering more than 100 counterparty banks, BNP calculates dynamic credit across 12 electronic communication networks, optimizing global credit and eliminating carve-outs.

Joe Nash, head of global macro digital at BNP, said, “We see this as an important initiative to address regulatory and industry body concerns about the over-allocation and inefficiencies of credit distribution on dealer-to-dealer venues. Moreover, this approach, combined with CobaltFX Analytics allows us to right-size our limit for each counterparty whilst improving market access with them.”

Trading Technologies launches day-one connectivity to Abaxx Exchange

Trading Technologies International (TT), a global capital markets technology platform provider, is now offering its clients access to Abaxx Exchange, a global commodity futures exchange and clearinghouse based in Singapore. The market launched on June 28, with the first trade executed through the TT platform by StoneX Financial. Clients are able to use TT to trade the exchange’s energy and carbon derivatives contracts.

Products currently offered on Abaxx include five new commodity benchmark futures contracts. These centrally cleared, physically deliverable contracts enable market participants to execute their energy transition strategies, providing improved price discovery and enhanced risk management tools in liquefied natural gas and carbon markets, to be soon followed by solutions for battery metals.

TT also recently announced connectivity to the European Power Exchange—EPEX SPOT, the largest power exchange in Europe—through the TT platform. The connection gives clients the ability to trade the European physical power markets for the first time on TT. In collaboration with a large European energy supplier, the firm offers a continuous intraday power trading capability to clients globally as a fully co-located service.

Gleif establishes vLEI advisory board

The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (Gleif) has established the vLEI Technical Advisory Board, a cross-industry body assembled to provide technical, governance, and developmental support to the growing vLEI stakeholder ecosystem.

The vLEI Technical Advisory Board, which will meet monthly, consists of technology experts at organizations including Accelerate GmbH, Esatus AG, healthKERI, Provenant, and Prosapien. It is chaired by Christoph Schneider, Gleif’s head of IT.

The board will work with Gleif to facilitate ecosystem growth by supporting the system’s scalability and technical interoperability, promoting related use cases and participating in pilot projects, building partnerships, and strengthening ties with the open-source community to enable global adoption of vLEIs.

The vLEI digital organizational identity was developed in response to the need for tamper-resistant credentials to provide greater security, convenience, versatility, and ease of use for organizations and the persons representing them in official or functional roles.

SIX and Avaloq partner to simplify financial instrument valuation

SIX has launched the Independent Valuation Service for financial instruments, which was co-created with Avaloq based on a strategic partnership. The initiative addresses international financial markets’ need for end-of-day product valuations from an independent source. This facilitates client reporting, risk management, and continuous benchmarking.

Product valuations are important for asset and risk managers, custodians, and other financial institutions to guide investment decisions and perform risk management, compliance, and reporting procedures.

The Independent Valuation Service for structured products is available through the established Connexor API and offers an accessible and customizable solution. Users can subscribe or unsubscribe to instruments via ISIN requests based on their needs to obtain end-of-day valuations for non-listed structured products to trigger required downstream processes.

The service’s API integrates valuations and risk figures for structured products across financial markets, leveraging different pricing engines and real-time data analysis. Automated coverage checks ensure comprehensive data availability and cost transparency for each product available globally.

Valverde Investment Partners selects Northern Trust as asset servicer

Northern Trust has been appointed by Valverde Investment Partners to provide custody, fund administration, foreign exchange and cash management services for its newly formed Variable Capital Company (VCC) fund, along with its sub-fund, Asean+ Fund.

Valverde is a newly established, Singapore-based, independent investment management firm specializing in Asean equities. The VCC launch and its sub-fund represent Valverde’s goal of achieving long-term absolute returns, primarily composed of publicly traded equities within Asean companies.

“Launching a VCC fund comes with inherent complexities, and we were seeking a partner that could help us manage these from both a custodial and fund administration perspective,” said John Foo, founder and CEO at Valverde. “We were especially impressed by Northern Trust’s global expertise and focus on clients such as ourselves, which aligns with our dedication to providing top-tier investment solutions and client service to our investors.”

Northern Trust’s Global Fund Services business provides fund administration, depositary, global custody, investment operations outsourcing, and data solutions to global investment managers. In Singapore, it includes servicing of VCC fund structures launched as standalone Singapore funds or umbrella structures with Singapore-domiciled sub-funds.

Eventus joins FIA Tech’s Databank Network

FIA Tech, a technology provider to the exchange-traded derivative industry, announced that Eventus, a provider of trade surveillance software, has joined the FIA Tech Databank Network and will be integrating FIA Tech’s cross-reference symbology and core contract specifications data into its client offering.

This is the first example of a trade surveillance and market risk solution provider embedding Databank into its service offering to clients. The Databank Network is FIA Tech’s initiative to bring together independent software vendors (ISVs), exchanges, clearinghouses and other technology providers into an interoperable global network, simplifying the use of reference data, analytics and software solutions from participating firms. It unifies reference data from more than 80 exchanges and central counterparties, index providers including FTSE, MSCI, S&P, STOXX, ISVs, and data vendors EDI and FactSet.

FIA Tech is owned by a consortium of 12 clearing firms and the Futures Industry Association.

Sygnum, Fidelity International partner with Chainlink to provide NAV data on chain

Chainlink, a tokenized asset infrastructure provider, announced a collaboration with Fidelity International and Sygnum, a digital asset banking group, to bring net asset value (NAV) data on chain. The collaboration provides transparency and accessibility around asset data for Sygnum’s recently issued on-chain representation of Fidelity International’s $6.9 billion Institutional Liquidity Fund.

Sygnum tokenized $50 million of Matter Labs’ company treasury reserves. The reserves are held in Fidelity International’s money market fund and were issued on the ZKsync blockchain, a member of the Chainlink Scale program.

NAV data is a critical building block that underpins the traditional fund industry today. With Chainlink, NAV data can be reported and synchronized on chain in an automated and secure manner, providing real-time transparency and built-in access to historical data for Sygnum, its clients, and broader market participants. NAV data can also be updated on chain across any public or private blockchain.

Avelacom facilitates low-latency access to Brazil Stock Exchange

Avelacom has expanded its low-latency solution portfolio for access to the Brazil Stock Exchange (B3) by completing its network certification and becoming an RCB (Rede de Comunicação B3/B3 Communications Network) provider.

This development enhances Avelacom’s existing real-time market data and low-latency trading solutions by enabling clients to have a direct market access port to B3’s matching engine without additional infrastructure. This extends B3’s services to financial markets around the world.

With the addition of the RCB services, Avelacom can offer a more cost-efficient alternative to remote market access and trading. Avelacom’s market-to-market connectivity ensures data transfer between key financial hubs, and the use of turn-up connections enables clients to quickly start trading and accessing market data.

The RCB connectivity method provides access to all B3’s markets, including Bovespa (equities), BM&F (derivatives), B3 DA (digital assets), and Cetip (OTC), as well as B3’s post-trade and testing environments.

The project involved investments in Avelacom’s core and transport networks, including the setup of new network devices and cabling in both B3’s primary and secondary datacenters to support disaster recovery services.