New York-headquartered Liquidnet, the off-exchange liquidity platform that provides institutional buy-side traders with secure and anonymous block trading of equities, announced th
New York-headquartered Liquidnet, the off-exchange liquidity platform that provides institutional buy-side traders with secure and anonymous block trading of equities, announced this week that Indonesia-listed securities had been added to its trading operations. The news comes just weeks after Hedgeweek reported (3rd December, 2010) that the firm had extended its global reach by trading Malaysian securities last November. With Indonesia, Liquidnet now offers institutional investors trading access to 39 equity markets. Trading will commence on 25 January, 2011 and would appear to underscore the value of Southeast Asia’s markets to Liquidnet: year-on-year principal traded in its Asia Pacific operations climbed 37 per cent to USD14billion in 2010. They clearly intend to hit the ground running this year with this latest addition. Liquidnet’s head of Asia Pacific, Lee Porter (pictured), said that global money managers were looking to access high growth emerging markets such as Indonesia and that the firm was “providing opportunities to capture alpha in these markets” by bringing Indonesian equities onto their platform. “This addition is the latest example of new ways we are bringing global block liquidity to our Members,” said Porter.
Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country with a population of 238million people. It is also Southeast Asia’s largest economy. International investors have been flocking there recently to invest in the country’s high yielding bonds and its growing equity market: the Jakarta Composite Index gained +44 per cent in 2010. With healthy domestic consumption and strong exports (e.g. coal to China), the IMF forecast Indonesia’s GDP to grow 6.2 per cent in 2011. “Indonesia offers investors a sizeable equity market, backed by a stable economy and strong growth prospects,” added John Barker, Head of International, Liquidnet.
