July 17, 2006 (Jersey City, NJ) - Thomson TradeWeb, the leading online marketplace
for Fixed Income and Derivatives, and part of The Thomson Corporation (NYSE: TOC; TSX:
TOC), today announced the strategic acquisition of LeverTrade LLC, formerly Global
Trade Technologies (GTT), a provider of web-based fixed-income management systems for
the retail marketplace. Through LeverTrade's retail fixed-income marketplace, financial
advisors and retail representatives from leading firms search commingled inventory from
over 30 broker-dealers and generate orders that flow to their internal trading desks.
LeverTrade will be re-branded TradeWeb Retail.
This acquisition is part of Thomson TradeWeb's accelerated build strategy in retail
fixed-income trading. Using LeverTrade as the core technology for TradeWeb Retail,
Thomson TradeWeb will leverage its operations and technology with Thomson Financial's
wealth management footprint (deployed to over 130,000 broker desktops) and back-office
services to rapidly scale the retail fixed-income business. "Entering into retail fixed
income is the logical next step for us," said Jim Toffey, President of Equities, Fixed
Income, and Retail Wealth for Thomson Financial. "Acquiring LeverTrade, a company with
proven retail fixed-income trading technology, coupled with TradeWeb's existing dealer
relationships and Thomson Financial's presence in the retail wealth market, allows us
to build out our strategy to be the one-stop destination for all electronic
fixed-income trading."
"We have used the LeverTrade technology for a number of years as an effective
white-labeled solution for our traders and advisors. LeverTrade's customizable tools
and essential functionality has enabled us to continue our firm's comprehensive
approach to meeting our clients' needs. TradeWeb's acquisition of LeverTrade confirms
our faith in the technology, and positions the network to increase its already deep
pool of liquidity for our traders and advisors," said Jack Schlifer, Senior Managing
Director, Keybanc Capital Markets.
TradeWeb Retail is being offered to retail brokerage firms and investment advisors
as a low-cost, highly-effective retail bond-trading platform that will include a suite
of compliance / best execution tools, as well as decision support and portfolio
management functionality. TradeWeb Retail will also be offered to buy-side investment
managers needing fully-disclosed access to a large pool of retail bonds with "Request
for Quote" trade functionality. In addition, TradeWeb Retail will be seamlessly
integrated with Thomson Financial's market leading back-office system, BETA, as well as
its retail wealth front-end desktop solution Thomson ONE. TradeWeb Retail will also
connect to non-Thomson back-office systems and other third party applications.
TradeWeb is the leading online fixed-income trading network with over
10 million trades executed and total volume surpassing $130 trillion since its
inception in 1998. TradeWeb's multi-dealer auction model links the trading desks of 36
of the world's leading Fixed-Income dealers with more than 2,200 buy-side institutions
in North America, Europe, and Asia . Over $200 billion in trading volume gets executed
over TradeWeb each day.
The business is also the leading electronic "straight-through
processing" network for the fixed-income markets, providing dealers and buy-side
institutions with paperless trade allocations and confirmations on its fully-integrated
TradeXpress network. TradeWeb's STP network also includes AccountNet, the first
derivatives counterparty management tool and the leading data warehouse for standing
settlement instructions and OTC derivatives legal documentation.
Thomson TradeWeb operates within the Thomson Financial group of
businesses. TradeWeb LLC is a member of the NASD. TradeWeb Europe Limited is regulated
by the U.K. Financial Services Authority.
The Thomson Corporation (www.thomson.com), with 2005 revenues of
approximately $8.5 billion, is a global leader in providing integrated information
solutions to business and professional customers. Thomson provides value-added
information, software tools and applications to more than 20 million users in the
fields of law, tax, accounting, financial services, higher education, reference
information, corporate e-learning and assessment, scientific research and healthcare.
With operational headquarters in Stamford, Conn., Thomson has approximately 40,500
employees and provides services in approximately 130 countries. The Corporation's
common shares are listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges (NYSE: TOC; TSX:
TOC).