TradeWeb Gains Traction in the Corporate Bond Market
--Volume Growing Rapidly with New Bid and Offer List Functionality--
--Citigroup and Deutsche Bank Join as Liquidity Providers--
Jersey City, NJ (May 20, 2004) -- TradeWeb, the leading dealer-to-customer fixed-income trading network, announced today that its new online corporate bond marketplace is building significant momentum among buy-side and sell-side firms. Though still in beta testing, the new platform now has more than 150 users from major buy-side firms and seven of the leading dealers providing liquidity. Citigroup (NYSE: C) and Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) recently joined Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley as liquidity providers in TradeWeb's new online corporate bond marketplace. A number of other dealers will soon join as well.
Sparking the surge in activity is the recent launch of TradeWeb's advanced Bid and Offer List execution functionality, which allows buy-side investors to complete large multi-trade transactions online in a quick and efficient way and execute at the best price.
TradeWeb's Corporate marketplace provides buy-side customers with deep liquidity, superior execution functionality, unprecedented integration of TRACE data, and market leading STP capabilities -- all on one screen. For the buy-side, this powerful new multi-dealer platform significantly enhances investment decision-making, maximizes price discovery, and improves trading efficiency, all of which ultimately lead to better investment performance.
"TradeWeb has a great track record, and it looks like they have translated that experience into a successful corporate bond platform," said Jeff Coil, Vice President and Corporate Bond Manager of Aegon Investment Management.
TradeWeb also provides participating dealers with an extremely efficient and cost effective channel to handle their customers' corporate bond business.
"The combination of integrated TRACE data, easy trading tools, and back-end processing puts TradeWeb at the forefront of cash credit markets," said Nancy Wohlbruck, Managing Director at Citigroup. "We believe our clients appreciate the fact that they can conveniently trade multiple fixed-income products on one platform."
"As with every other asset class we have online, we have built a platform that leap frogs the competition's current offering," said Jim Toffey, CEO of TradeWeb. "As dealers and their customers come to fully appreciate TradeWeb's superior design, content, and economics, the choice to participate is very compelling."
With the launch of TradeWeb Corporates, the competition in the online trading segment is really heating up. Sang Lee, Senior Analyst at Celent Communications comments: "TradeWeb has really taken the corporate marketplace one step ahead with its full integration of TRACE, advanced Bid and Offer Lists, and STP. This new platform is sure to shake up the competitive landscape for the online credit markets."
TradeWeb plans a full market launch of its new corporate bond platform in June.
About TradeWeb
TradeWeb is the leading online fixed-income trading network with over 5 million trades executed and total volume surpassing $46 trillion since its inception in 1998. TradeWeb's multi-dealer auction model links 27 of the world's leading dealers of fixed-income securities with more than 1,500 buy-side institutions in North America and Europe. TradeWeb's principal competitor in the credit markets is MarketAxess.
The company 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 TradeXpressSM network. TradeWeb's STP network also includes AccountNet, the leading standing settlement instruction database.
For more information about TradeWeb products and services, please visit the company's website at www.tradeweb.com or contact Jack Mahoney at (201) 536-5878.