Vela Trading Technologies LLC, which provides high performance trading, market data, and analytics technology, has announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Object Trading, a global provider of a fully-managed Direct Market Access (DMA) platform, pre-trade risk controls, and analytics applications.
This is the second acquisition for Vela in just a few weeks; Vela’s acquisition of OptionsCity was announced on June 20 and has now closed.
With the acquisitions of OptionsCity and Object Trading, Vela will now offer a comprehensive software and managed services solution across the entire electronic trading workflow.
This acquisition further strengthens Vela’s high-performance trading and market data technology products and services, delivering an extensive set of solutions across the entire electronic trading workflow to help clients reduce total cost of ownership, comply with ever-changing regulatory requirements, and evolve their global electronic trading strategies.
The addition of Object Trading and OptionsCity enables Vela to provide an end-to-end trading platform with global, multi-asset class coverage; high-performance, low-latency market access and market data; industry leading pre-trade risk controls; drop copy functionality; post-trade processing; trading analytics; plus, a front-end GUI for price discovery, workflow management, and order entry.
Jennifer Nayar, CEO of Vela, said,
This acquisition of Object Trading is part of our strategic plan to grow our trading technology portfolio. It strengthens our high-performance trading solutions and will accelerate our market access Platform-as-a-Service strategy with additional pre-trade risk and analytics functionality. Together with Object Trading and OptionsCity, Vela further expands our products and services suite bringing innovative technologies and cost-effective solutions to our clients around the world.
Steve Woodyatt, CEO & Chairman of Object Trading commented: “We are very excited to join the Vela team.” He added, “As part of the larger organization, we will be able to deliver a wide range of solutions to the markets, helping clients to support key obligations to comply with evolving regulatory requirements, adopt global electronic trading strategies, and manage costs.”
The Object Trading transaction is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions. It is expected to close in early Q3 2017.
Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP served as Vela’s legal advisors in the transaction. Goldenhill International M&A Advisors served as Object Trading’s strategic advisors; and PwC acted as Object Trading’s legal and financial advisors.