Integration with Portware EMS enables more efficient and transparent bookbuilding and price formation for Buyside Traders

Appital, the Equity Capital Marketplace, today announced an integration with FactSet’s Portware Enterprise Execution Management System (EMS), giving clients access to Appital’s revolutionary bookbuilding platform. 

The integration of Appital’s bookbuilding platform in FactSet’s Portware Enterprise EMS automates what has traditionally been a highly manual process, while at the same time giving buyside traders the ability to place very large orders or participate in unique liquidity opportunities.

FactSet, a global provider of integrated financial information, analytical applications, and industry-leading service, has a strong history of innovation, and its multi-asset class Portware Enterprise EMS helps the world’s largest asset managers and hedge funds navigate the challenges of complexity and scale with embedded analytics, sophisticated decision support, and state-of-the-art automation. Sparked by continued demand from these clients, the integration with Appital will offer buyside clients a more efficient and transparent way to execute large-in-size orders with minimal market impact or risk of price erosion.

By working with a pioneering firm like FactSet, Appital is driving the technological infrastructure development necessary to bring innovation and automation to equity capital markets by integrating their platform into existing market structures. Appital gives the buyside community greater exposure to deal flow opportunities they have not been able to access before. Buyside traders looking to execute large orders in excess of five days ADV, including in highly illiquid, small and mid-cap stocks, have access to real-time visibility, full transparency, and maximum control over the bookbuilding and deal distribution process. 

Rob Watts, Director, Strategy and Product Management, Trading Solutions at FactSet, commented: “The buyside is constantly looking for innovative ways to optimise execution, and liquidity discovery is crucial for our clients, particularly in less liquid markets. Appital automatically alerts them to new liquidity opportunities within Portware, enabling them to efficiently execute size without information leakage.” 

Brian Guckian, Chief Development Officer of Appital, said: “Our mission is to put buyside firms in control of their bookbuilding activity. Bringing the bookbuilding process inside the EMS infrastructure with FactSet’s Portware is a significant step forward, reducing the risks inherent in the traditional phone and email processes. They can proactively source liquidity and efficiently drive the bookbuilding process in real time on one automated platform.” 

Appital is currently onboarding asset managers onto its platform in preparation for launch in 2022 and has established a working group that includes some of the world’s largest asset managers. The group helps mutual clients define how they want to interact with hard-to-find liquidity in the market and proactively build books of demand, while ensuring that integration to existing workflows remains seamless. EMS providers are now able to code to established, FIX-based protocols for the overall benefit of the buyside community. 

Through integration with Appital, buyside firms will also have access to the liquidity and efficiency of executing on Turquoise, LSEG’s (London Stock Exchange Group) pan-European multilateral trading facility (MTF) with seamless straight-through-processing (STP) to over 20 settlement venues.