RBC Capital Markets, the corporate and investment banking arm of RBC Financial Group, has completed the acqusition of Carlin Financial Group, a New-York-based broker dealer that provides proprietary services and technology to hedge funds, professional traders and financial institutions.
Financial terms of the acquisition, first announced in October last year, were not disclosed.
With the acquisition, RBC says it will average 3.5 billion shares in monthly trading volume, ranking it in the top 10 in the US.
The new unit forms the basis of a new trading system business division at RBC, called RBC Carlin. Greg Mills, RBC Capital Markets' head of global equity sales and trading, says the bank has been very aggressive in building a complete product and service platform to better serve clients.
"The creation of the RBC Carlin business division, with its advanced technology platform, is a clear illustration of our commitment to delivering a full suite of products to our clients," he adds.
As well as supplying proprietary trade execution technology the division has recently launched Options Pro, a customisable options trading module.
The Options Pro module is part of the bank's RBC Accel portfolio trading package and represents the first in a series of module releases and enhancements to the system. RBC says proprietary algorithms will soon follow.