Neptune Networks, the fixed income pre-trade market utility, has closed a capital raise of more than USD15 million from existing shareholders across two-tranches.
The majority of Neptune’s existing shareholders participated in the capital raise, these included Bank of America, Barclays, BBVA, BNP Paribas, Citi, Crédit Agricole CIB, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, ING, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and UBS.
The investment will be used to continue Neptune’s growth in technology and data as well as the overall business structure. Client coverage will also be enhanced, in particular in the US where the network has seen substantial growth in the past 18-months.
“This investment and the associated confidence of shareholders in Neptune is a continued affirmation of the utility model and the platform. In the current environment, which is accelerating change at speeds never seen in fixed income, Neptune is well placed to take advantage of the opportunities that benefit the key stakeholders, the buy-side and sell-side,” says Byron Cooper-Fogarty, interim CEO of Neptune Networks.
He adds: “Neptune is a truly collaborative project, where we have continued to see buy-side adoption. This is particularly so as we’ve provided further connectivity flexibility via OMS and EMS integration, our own web-based portal and an API option that has become increasingly popular over the past 12-months. As a result, the user types on the buy-side has evolved to include not only trading but also portfolio management and research. This investment will allow us to add more value to this client base.”
Olivier Renart, global head of Credit Trading, BNP Paribas, says: “Neptune is one of very few new platforms that has not only evidenced growth but has reached critical mass of both buy-side and sell-side participants.”
Sonali Theisen, head of Fixed Income Market Structure and E-Trading, Bank of America, adds: “Given the current environment, improving market efficiency has become more important than ever. We support Neptune’s mission to provide common infrastructure and tools for market participants in a cost-effective manner. We look forward to the company enhancing bilateral execution capabilities as part of its connectivity offering in the near future.”
“At BBVA we feel it is important to deliver digital solutions to our clients and by partnering with Neptune we have been able to successfully deliver pre-trade data directly into investment firms. We believe it is now time to build on that success by adding more opportunities to interact digitally with our investor clients based on Neptune’s low-cost utility model. This will benefit both our clients in terms of improved data, workflows and analytics, and the fixed income industry as a whole,” comments Victor Rodriguez, head of FI Flow Trading, BBVA.
Guy America, global head of Credit Markets, JP Morgan, says: “Increasing connectivity with clients is a key tenet of our credit business and crucial for the evolution of the market. Neptune continues to be a game changer by facilitating this in a low cost and efficient manner, in turn increasing competition in the market. Its strong data governance values also gives us and our clients comfort to do business in a safe and effective way.”
Christoph Hock, head of Multi-Asset Trading, Union Investment, adds: “At Union Investment we have been part of Neptune since inception, the importance of the network in the evolution of fixed income market structure can’t be overemphasised. The recent capital raise will allow Neptune to continue to innovate and add significant value to the buy-side community.”
Neptune has 28 dealers contributing real-time axe and inventory data to institutional buy-side clients in multiple asset classes ranging from credit (investment grade and high yield) to rates and emerging markets. This sees 63,000-line items daily, on over 30,000 individual bonds and almost USD300 billion in gross notional.
