State Street has announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire outsourced trading firm CF Global Trading for an undisclosed sum.
CF Global was founded in 2000 and specialises in outsourced trading on an agency basis for a variety of asset classes including equities, listed derivatives, and fixed income.
In a statement, State Street said that CF Global and its team of traders had helped asset managers extend global trading infrastructure, improve access to liquidity, streamline workflow, and reduce trading and infrastructure costs throughout its history.
The deal, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year, will add “scale and significant expertise” to State Street’s current outsourced trading services, according to global head of portfolio solutions at State Street, Dan Morgan.
“Market volatility, margin compression, increased regulation, and cost pressures have presented multiple challenges for investment managers,” Mr Morgan said.
“Survival and growth depend on the ability to streamline processes, reduce costs, and integrate infrastructure to allow more focus on core competencies of investment selection and alpha generation.”
State Street said that the combination of the two firms will enable it to offer a complete global trading solution as part of the State Street Alpha SM front-to-back platform.
Additionally, the firm said that clients can expect to benefit from multi-asset class execution, modular-based solutions, 24-hour global trading capabilities, reduced operational risks, and potential cost savings.
“This is a very exciting day for all of us at CF Global Trading,” commented CF Global Trading co-founder and chief executive officer Scott Chace.
“Our team has worked with our clients for 20+ years to develop a global, multi- asset class execution platform with a focus on accessing liquidity, improving workflows, and reducing costs.
“We look forward to joining the State Street team and continuing to build on our client platform and experience with the scale of one of the world’s largest institutional financial services providers.”
State Street noted that it has provided clients with outsourced trading solutions since 2010 across the Americas, the Asia-Pacific, and the Middle East.
The acquisition of CF Global Trading will extend its ability to provide services to clients in the UK and the EU, where State Street said outsourced trading is maturing the fastest.
Once finalised, the new combined State Street footprint for outsourced trading will include trading desks in Boston, New York, Toronto, London, Lisbon, Hong Kong, and Sydney.
