Liquidnet Angles for Role in IPOs
Dark pool operator Liquidnet Holdings Inc. has begun pitching its electronic share-trading services to publicly traded companies planning major share transactions like buybacks, follow-on sales or initial public offerings.
The move opens up a new rank of potential customers for the New York-based firm, a specialist in handling large, unwieldy stock trades for major financial institutions, at a time when industry-wide trading activity in cash equities remains depressed.
“To us, the problems that corporations had were eerily similar to the problem that institutions had,” Vlad Khandros, market structure analyst for Liquidnet, said in an interview. “They’re trying to build up or unwind a very big position without impacting the market.”
