Plato Partnership and Tradeweb Unveil Tradeweb Plato eBlock, a Strategic Partnership for European Cash Equity Risk Trading

LONDON (May 17, 2018) - Plato Partnership, the not-for-profit company bringing creative solutions and efficiencies to today's equity marketplace, and Tradeweb Markets, a leading global provider of fixed income, derivatives and ETF marketplaces, announced their intention to enter into a strategic partnership to deliver Tradeweb Plato 'eBlock'. 

Market structure and regulatory changes in European equity markets have created demand for cost-effective solutions to be provided on regulated trading venues to benefit from greater competition, transparency and operational efficiency. In particular, institutional investors are seeking new and streamlined ways of accessing liquidity to address execution-related challenges driven by the fragmentation of activity between venues. 

The Tradeweb Plato eBlock allows participants to source and aggregate broker principal risk liquidity, addressing buy-side concerns over market fragmentation, providing the buy-side with direct control over their execution and offering both the buy- and sell-side the opportunity to match, negotiate and execute with ease and certainty on a regulated venue. The eBlock platform will leverage innovative 'blotter scraping' technology, providing buy-side traders with the insight required to target suitable organisations based on activity, execution rates and market impact. 

Plato Partnership and Tradeweb Markets will work together to drive eBlock's capabilities and future developments. Phase 1 of the eBlock initiative is scheduled to go live in Q3 this year and will include the introduction of RFQ (Request-for-Quote) to enable targeting of broker principal risk liquidity on a regulated venue. The Tradeweb Plato eBlock trading platform will be operated by Tradeweb on its MTF (Multilateral Trading Facility) following usual regulatory approvals. 

Lee Olesky, CEO of Tradeweb Markets, commented: 

"Our collaboration with Plato Partnership is a significant milestone for Tradeweb. As pioneers of the multilateral electronic RFQ protocol, we have brought greater transparency and efficiency to fixed income, derivatives and ETF markets.

We are excited to extend this highly successful model to cash equities, and to work with Plato to develop new trading mechanisms to more efficiently execute block trades against principal liquidity on a regulated trading venue. We are confident that our innovative and efficient approach to block trade equities execution will offer market participants flexibility of choice and access to robust, cost-effective liquidity. 

At Tradeweb we are focused on solving market structure issues, as demonstrated by the success of our European ETF marketplace, providing clients with access to highly competitive pricing via the RFQ protocol in large notional size." 

Mike Bellaro, Plato Partnership Co-Chair, commented: 

"We are pleased to partner with Tradeweb to deliver this innovative solution for risk trading of cash equities.  

eBlock allows buy-side traders to tie the sourcing of risk liquidity into the execution process using intelligent data analytics, giving them the necessary information required to make good decisions about trade execution. 

This is yet another step in a series of developments from Plato Partnership which will reduce trading costs, simplify market structure and champion the objectives of end investors."