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TORA opens Sydney office, Australia ‘one of our major focuses for 2011’ says Jenkins

December 9, 2010
- 6:04 pm

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TORA, one of Asia’s leading providers of advanced trading technology and off-exchange liquidity pools to institutional traders, has extended its footprint in the region by opening an o

TORA, one of Asia’s leading providers of advanced trading technology and off-exchange liquidity pools to institutional traders, has extended its footprint in the region by opening an office in Sydney. The new operation is headed up by Nathan Eason, Vice President of Sales, Australia. Eason has approximately 15 years’ experience and joins from SimCorp, a global financial software solutions firm. Speaking to Hedgeweek, Chris Jenkins, Managing Director Asia Pacific, said that Eason was hired because of his buy side and sell side experience: “Nathan’s got a lot of experience in the space. But technology expertise is only half the story – you need to understand the client’s needs completely and that’s what we’re all about.” TORA provides clients with access to 24 key exchanges across 14 Asian countries through TORA Compass, a state-of-the-art trading platform that minimizes latency. Jenkins said that he expected Eason to expand TORA’s client base and build out the business as “Australia is one of our major focuses for 2011”.

Jenkins added that Australia had long been on the radar, given that the firm had a lot of clients based there. “As more investments in Australia look to move offshore there’s a requirement for a Pan-Asian execution capability and we see ourselves as fitting that role,” said Jenkins. Historically, the bigger hedge funds, as well as boutique funds operating under the umbrella of large companies haven’t necessarily had the need for anything beyond in-house onshore expertise but Jenkins believes that Australia’s thriving alternatives industry is evolving and there’s “more of a need for secondary trading platforms”. With respect to TORA’s off-exchange liquidity pool, Crosspoint, already well established in Japan, Jenkins said that Hong Kong would be targeted for early 2011. “Giving access to a market like Japan is good for our Australia-based clients,” said Jenkins. There has been a rise in “dark pool” liquidity across Asia this year, with Deutsche Bank recently launching Super X in Hong Kong. “From our perspective the more aggregation the better, we’ll certainly be talking to the major players in Hong Kong,” concluded Jenkins.

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