Appital

London, 14 December - Appital, the equity markets technology solution, today announced that Matthew Jefford, an experienced equity markets specialist, has been appointed as Head of Liquidity Solutions. He will help accelerate Appital’s growth strategy, specifically working with the asset management community to deepen platform liquidity, and support the firm’s mission to bring innovation and automation to equity markets.

Jefford brings over 30 years of experience working in the global financial markets, with a highly successful track record in Equities, Equity Derivatives, and Fixed Income. Prior to joining Appital, Matthew was Electronic Sales Trader at ICAP and previously worked with Liquidnet, Bloomberg Tradebook and Instinet on Sales, Electronic and automated Trading, covering clients in the EMEA region.

The appointment follows Appital’s recent VC funding announcement and the launch of Appital Turquoise BookBuilder™, the first buyside to buyside bookbuilding platform to bring a historically highly manual and opaque process into an automated, electronic platform. It allows institutional investors to gain control over the entire bookbuilding process and proactively source liquidity often in multiple days’ average daily volume (ADV).

Mark Badyra, CEO, Appital said: “I am thrilled to welcome Matthew to the Appital team. His industry insights and equity markets expertise are invaluable as we implement our vision to bring technological innovation, efficiency and transparency to equity markets and unlock latent liquidity for investors.”

Matthew Jefford, Business Development Executive, Appital, commented: “I am delighted to join Appital after such a successful launch and an exciting time for the business. There is a clear need in the equity market space to access deal flow opportunities and I look forward to working with the Appital team to make our capabilities available to the wider buyside community.”

Jefford added: “We are proactively engaging with global, regional and specialist asset managers following the launch of Appital Turquoise BookBuilder™ to increase the depth of available opportunities and liquidity within the platform.”

More than 40 asset managers, collectively managing more than US$30 trillion, have joined or are in the process of joining Appital.