UK market data vendor Markit has confirmed that it has acquired the Boat MiFID-compliant trade reporting platform from the consortium of nine investment banks that launched the system in September 2006. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed.
Reports surfaced yesterday that the banks involved in setting up the Boat platform were selling their stakes to Markit.
The Boat platform was established by ABN Amro, Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS for the collection and sale of trading data following the introduction of EU's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) in November.
The system enables market participants to publish pre-trade quotes and report OTC trades in equities in compliance with MiFID. Boat collects and validates this information before disseminating it to the market via ten market data vendors.
Markit says 24 investment banks are now using the platform to report over-the-counter (OTC) trades in equities. Trades reported on the platform now account for approximately 25% of the entire European equity markets, says the vendor.
Commenting on the acquisition, Will Meldrum, MD and head of Boat at Markit, says: "Boat is already changing the way market participants make investment decisions in the European OTC equity markets. We look forward to launching second-generation products in the coming months to enhance our clients' trading and investment operations."
Going forward Boat will be known as Markit Boat.