Squire Patton Boggs has acted for Neptune Networks (“Neptune”), an independent financial data company co-owned by a consortium of some of the world’s leading investment banks, on the sale of the company to TP ICAP Group (“TP ICAP”), a world-leading provider of financial markets infrastructure.
The team advising Neptune was led by Corporate partner Rob Bray in London and included Frankie Cooke, Matthew Vautrey, Patrick Ford and Alex Paterson. Neptune, which delivers high-quality, real-time pre-trade bond market data from many sell-side banks to buy-side clients, is a longstanding client of the firm. Rob Bray advised the original syndicate of 16 international banks on the initial launch of the Neptune platform in 2016.
Neptune supplies high-quality bond pre-trade data (axes and inventory) from 34 sell-side firms direct to the buy-side. Data accessed via Neptune is clean, standardised, and real-time from sell-side trading systems, rather than periodic runs or manual spreadsheets. The platform carries over 200,000 positions daily, $900bn+ in gross notional liquidity, across asset classes such as Credit, Rates and Emerging Markets. Neptune is used globally by buy-side firms with more than $55 trillion in aggregate AUM.
TP ICAP will bring together Neptune’s extensive proprietary data network with Liquidnet’s electronic credit trading platform, creating a unique, full service, global Dealer-to-Client credit business. At launch, Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Crédit Agricole CIB, Deutsche Bank, ING, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley and UBS will own a 30% stake in the new business. This ownership structure is intended to ensure that Liquidnet and the Bank Shareholders are resourced and incentivised to grow the business.