Before we get to my thoughts for this week, let me point you to a couple of opinion pieces by two people far more intelligent than me: Jo Wright and Wei-Shen Wong.

First, while Jo is technically our UK editor, she is also the editor of obscure market data policy issues. This week she looked at how aspirant ‘competing consolidators’ were hoping for a lot more leeway than they got from the SEC in an important fee filing. Wei-Shen Wong, our Asia editor and host of the Waters Wavelength Podcast, recently discussed one of my favorite topics—interoperability—and she wonders just how much banks want true interop.

For those still here, let’s discuss Chicago trading platform provider Trading Technologies.

To new beginnings…

Last week I wanted to write about the CME-Google pairing, but I wasn’t about to ignore the news that Trading Technologies had finally been acquired after about a year of speculation.

If you’re paying any attention to the world of financial technology, you likely already know this, but just a quick recap: On October 31, it was announced that TT was acquired by private (they say growth) equity firm 7Ridge. The deal was supported by Cboe Global Markets and the Singapore Exchange, which are investors in the fund managed by 7Ridge. Assuming regulatory approval, current TT CEO Tim Geannopulos will relinquish the role to Keith Todd, who is currently CEO of derivatives risk software provider KRM22. (Completing the game of musical chairs, Stephen Casner will take over as CEO of KRM22; he is currently president of the vendor. Todd says that KRM and TT could partner in the future.)

As we reported earlier this year, TT was in something of a holding pattern as it awaited a new owner. At the time, all that was known was that the buyer was probably not going to be Goldman Sachs after talks broke down at the start of the year. So here we are…TT is independent and has the makings to become the acquirer instead of the acquiree.

The key to this deal is Todd. By all accounts that I’ve read and heard, 7Ridge is a good fit for TT. If and when the money faucet opens and 7Ridge lives up to its growth equity ethos, then it will all come down to the person at the top.

The CliffsNotes for those who don’t know the man starts with his having four decades of experience. The first half of his career was spent largely in the defense industry, before transitioning into financial technology, give or take keeping some projects from his old world on the side. He was the CEO of derivatives software technology provider Ffastfill, which was eventually bought—like so very many before and after—by Ion Trading. He left a few years later when he saw a gap in the capital markets around derivatives risk management software, which gave birth to KRM22.

But that’s just a resume; who is Todd at his core? An evangelist, one might say.

Evangelists in the capital markets come in many forms—blockchain evangelists, machine learning enthusiasts, market data zealots and market structure wonks. For Keith Todd, it’s all about that SaaS.

In his 14-plus years at Ffastfill, he was focused on shifting the vendor to a Software-as-a-Service model. The KRM22 platform had to be SaaS. And TT—as we’ve been documenting on this site—famously ditched its X_Trader platform for a SaaS platform, also called TT.

“You cut me in half, my DNA is SaaS. I made a stand way back that software should be delivered as a service,” Todd recently told me.

He has hair the color of freshly fallen snow. He’s an engaging Brit—the type you might like to have a pint at the pub with. He comes off as self-confident and direct; he loves his cricket and to drop idioms that would leave many Americans wondering what he is talking about.

When I asked Todd what he wants his main message to be for employees and customers after he takes over (again, assuming regulatory approval), he said, “service quality”.

“In the old days when you had 1,200 customers and you have 1,200 installs on site, if one went down, there was a discussion about whether it was the network or your product. If you’re flying the plane and all your customers are on the one plane, that’s quite a serious problem. Service quality—I’m paranoid about it.”

So what’s the service? Well, today, it’s all about the TT EMS platform and the recently launched TT OMS. For the former, there are precious few left on X_Trader. For the latter, Farley Owens, president of TT, told me this back in late July: “Some of our customers are waiting to see what happens with the sale of TT. They want to know who’s going to own TT before they make a commitment to spend more money and do more integration—if it’s somebody they don’t like, they don’t want to do that.”

So in a year’s time after the deal closes, we can officially take stock of who “liked” the pairing with 7Ridge…and who didn’t. But, as I noted before, as best I can tell, the industry feedback has been largely positive.

There’s also TT’s Echo Chamber project, which aims to provide a free view of market order flow for TT platform users. It’s an ambitious initiative, and it’s one that might be on the rocks.

Owens said this to me previously: “As we were going through the sale process last year, the leading contender to buy us actually told us that they’d prefer if we did not work on that, and so we kind of put it on the shelf. It’s there, and we still have some customers expressing interest to use that internally for their own trading within their own firm—like a large prop shop. And then there’s the broader version of that, which is a more global feed that we would publish out.”

Todd wasn’t able to provide much clarity when I asked him for his thoughts about Echo Chamber. “I’m not trying to be difficult and unhelpful here, but I think the right time to talk about other asset classes and other initiatives is probably next year.”

Fair enough—he’s not even officially the CEO yet. But one thing that I think will be important to keep an eye on is…for lack of a better word…TT’s ambition. Is it a “build” or “buy” ambition? Maybe both?

When I spoke with Todd and Geannopulos, they stressed the fact that TT would one day be an acquirer itself. Geannopulos said that TT would be just like before: “on steroids because of the additional funding opportunities.” Todd said this: “So TT has gone from certainly being one of the best looking targets, to being a consolidator—that’s a profound move.”

One of the things that I’ve always liked about TT was its ambition. Moving from X_Trader—an established, respected platform—to a SaaS version vision that ripped the proverbial Band-Aid off. That decision led to the TT EMS and eventually OMS. There was the infrastructure-as-a-service offering. This all helped to pave the road for Echo Chamber. There was no guarantee that the platform would work and that there would be the necessary buy-in…but there was ambition. And the company was even early in on institutional-grade crypto tools.

The company’s previous CEO, Rick Lane, was a technologist through and through, and he pushed those projects forward. (Today, he’s the CTO of core engineering at Citadel.) He was, as best I can tell, the right person for the job as TT was shifting into its new phase of SaaS existence.

But as TT was set to be sold by majority owner Harris Brumfield, Geannopulos also now appears to be the right person for the job. After a long former run in sales at TT, he rejoined to guide the ship to a buyer. He accomplished that, and as a result, TT is still independent and set up (should 7Ridge come through) for growth.

“When I came to be CEO, I came specifically to get TT positioned for its next period of growth, and do that in a way that’s optimizing for shareholders and keeping the TT employees intact, while making sure the customers are excited. I think: mission accomplished,” Geannopulos told me…and I agree.

But he also had this to say: “Keith is the person to take TT to the place it needs to go next.” I just met Todd, but I think many agree with that sentiment. 

Here’s a funny story about Geannopulos and Todd: The first conversation that they had occurred two decades ago with the former telling the latter that TT was suing Ffastfill for patent infringement.

“We came through that and we become long friends, to the point where every time I would go to London, Keith and I would grab breakfast. We were colleagues, but he’s also a bit of a mentor for me,” Geannopulos said to me.

Todd saw the value of SaaS long before many and he’s going to head a company that is now well positioned to run in this new SaaS-based world. I’ll be most interested to see if they choose to innovate internally, or maybe perhaps the thinking is more, with the SaaS EMS/OMS in place, let’s acquire innovative firms and connect them into the TT system. Maybe the ambition a few years ago needed to be internally build…now it can be ambitious with how it acquires firms.

But right now we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Todd is not yet the CEO. It will be fun, though, to see what’s next for TT now that the “who will be the buyer?” question has been put to sleep.

Have thoughts? Let me know: anthony.malakian@infopro-digital.com.