Appital, the Equity Capital Marketplace, is taking concrete steps in preparation for their platform launch, which will bring technological innovation and automation to equity capital markets and improve liquidity discovery and price formation processes of illiquid equity positions. The Appital platform allows buyside firms to gain greater exposure to deal flow opportunities they have not been able to access before, helping portfolio managers and heads of trading build a comprehensive picture of liquidity, including highly illiquid, small and mid-cap stocks.
After a successful BETA program, a first EMS integration with FlexTrade and the collaboration with Turquoise for execution and settlement, Appital is commencing the formal onboarding process for many of the largest global asset managers in the coming months.
Over 30 asset managers, who collectively manage over 30tn USD, are preparing to join Appital at launch, and are in the process of taking necessary legal and technical steps to take full advantage of the platform on day one. Once onboarded and integrated, the Appital platform will allow them to begin setting their preferences to proactively gain exposure to deal flow which is relevant to them.
“The pandemic saw asset managers focusing on their ability to ensure access to liquidity – the next stage will be focusing on how to best build on latent liquidity,” as Rebecca Healey of Redlap Consulting noted in The Trade, discussing her recent report “Liquidity in the Time of Covid”.
In addition, as Dr Robert Barnes, Group Head of Securities Trading & CEO Turquoise Global Holdings at London Stock Exchange Group recently said: “The price you tend to see for less liquid names on most stock exchanges is not necessarily the right price for large trade sizes. Appital, however, brings the right price for the right size. Through an EMS and STP into Turquoise, customers can take advantage of Appital’s innovation and access different countries as we continue to expand, achieving significant value-added.”
Mark Badyra, CEO of Appital, commented: “This is an exciting time for the business. Moving from BETA into legal onboarding, continuing the technology development and actively working on integration with more EMS Platforms as well as executing brokers is a culmination of a tremendous amount of effort from the Appital team. We look forward to continuing to work with our industry partners to realise our vision to bring innovation to equity capital markets.”
Badyra added: “Appital’s success to date is testament to the momentum we have built to meet the industry's clear need to access liquidity that is hard to find, often in excess of five days of Average Day Volume (ADV). The platform provides unique price formation capabilities of illiquid equity positions, allowing for execution with minimal market impact or risk of price erosion. ”
The client onboarding process follows a successful fundraise, which accelerates the expansion of Appital’s team as they move from BETA into the launch phase. The firm has been building out the technical team, recently adding Head of Product Mark Wharton, developers, senior engineers and security experts.
