Bats Global Markets (BATS) today announced the completion of the Chi-X Europe acquisition.
BATS intends to combine the BATS Europe and Chi-X Europe MTFs, which will be known as BATS Chi-X Europe and will account for approximately 25% of overall European equities trading, making it the largest pan-European securities market1.
Planning for the migration of the Chi-X Europe trading platform to BATS Europe technology will begin immediately. The technology migration is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2012.
"The completion of this deal joins two pioneering companies and together we will continue to be at the forefront of competition and innovation in Europe's securities markets," said Joe Ratterman, chairman and chief executive officer of BATS Global Markets. "By leveraging the mutual resources of BATS and Chi-X Europe, we are now even better positioned to keep Europe's markets competitive, as well as affect market structure reforms that support competition and innovation that ultimately benefit investors at all levels."
BATS announced in April its intention to appoint BATS Europe Chief Executive Officer Mark Hemsley as chief executive officer of the combined entity. Mr. Hemsley will initially head both the BATS Europe and Chi-X Europe organisations and will assume the CEO role for the combined BATS Chi-X Europe entity following the transfer of business, which is anticipated in January 2012.
Mr. Hemsley said: "We are glad to reach this important milestone and will move expeditiously to complete the integration of Chi-X Europe. An integration timetable will be made available to participants before the end of the year and we will make the transition process a smooth one so participants can soon begin to enjoy the benefits of deep liquidity, infrastructure rationalisation and product diversity that BATS Chi-X Europe will provide."
Additional senior management appointments will be announced at a later date.
In February, BATS entered a definitive agreement to purchase Chi-X Europe and the Office of Fair Trading referred the proposed combination to the UK Competition Commission in June. BATS last week announced that it received formal approval from the UK Competition Commission to complete the acquisition.
1 Based on BATS' current statistics.