Thomson TradeWeb Announces Entry into Retail Fixed-Income Markets; Newly Acquired LeverTrade is Re-branded TradeWeb Retail
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.
About Thomson TradeWeb
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.
About Thomson Corporation
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).