A former Blackrock senior trader is now going to co-lead the outsourced trading duties at London-based Linear Investments.
Paul Walker-Duncalf was previously Global Head of Equity Trading at BlackRock. He boasts nearly 25 years in senior trading positions at BlackRock and its predecessors Merrill Lynch Investment Managers and Mercury Asset Management.
Linear is a full service boutique prime broker, asset manager, and hedge fund incubator based in London and Hamburg.
Pauls appointment and his broad buyside experience will serve us extremely well as we continue to grow our outsourced trading business. The buyside is under enormous cost pressures due to increased regulatory and operational requirements on top of challenging market conditions. Many buy-side firms are seeking to control costs and are increasingly looking towards outsourced trading as a mechanism by which to achieve that, said Richard Lilley.
Outsourcing trading does not just bring about cost benefits, but improves the quality of execution which is absolutely critical. Utilizing an outsourced trading desk can enable a manager to execute their trades on better terms than they might normally have if they conducted this function in-house. Furthermore, outsourced trading can cover all geographies and asset classes, and use best in breed technologies. Linears outsourced trading desk will also have no proprietary positions – again something that should provide peace of mind to fund managers. This service complements Linears holistic offering to clients which also includes execution, settlement, middle office and back office outsourcing and transaction cost analysis, said Walker-Duncalf.
The shift towards outsourced trading has also been abetted by regulatory developments including the EUs Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II) due to take effect in January 2018.
Outsourced trading is exceptionally well-placed to help managers ensure compliance with the best execution provisions laid down by MiFID II. MiFID II is fast approaching and managers need to attain compliance. Outsourcing their trading is something they should be thinking about, Lilley added.
A number of managers are now electing to incur the financial hit and pay for research themselves given the operational complexities under MiFID II of running CSAs or having pre-paid research payment accounts. This is likely to result in more managers looking to outsource their trading to experienced providers such as Linear Investments said Lilley.
