Appital, the peer-to-peer price discovery and liquidity sourcing technology for asset managers, today announced the appointment of John Coules to the Appital business development team. A former HSBC high tough sales trader, John Coules joins Appital at a time when the business is experiencing significant growth, reaching $4.0bn of buy-side liquidity since the launch of Appital Insights™ in September 2023.

John Coules has over 30 years of experience in client-facing sales trading, equities, and building relationships with a wide range of institutional investors, predominantly in the UK and Europe. He brings a deep understanding of how equity markets operate, having served as a pan-European equities sales trader at HSBC for the last 17 years and at Lehman Brothers for 13 years before that. At Appital, John will be supporting the team with building and deepening buy-side relationships in the UK, Europe, and beyond.

Appital allows the buy-side community to gain greater exposure to deal flow and execution opportunities they have not been able to access before and interact with like-minded institutions in the liquidity discovery and price formation process. Appital Insights™ allows buy-side institutions to assess the viability of executing larger ADV orders without alerting the market and empowers traders and PMs to gain exposure to liquidity events in relevant equities that meet their minimum ADV or pricing thresholds.

Brian Guckian, Chief Business Development Officer at Appital, said: “I am delighted to welcome John to the Appital team at such an exciting time for the business. Since we launched Appital Insights™ in Q4 2023, Appital has gone from strength to strength. More than 40 asset managers with more than $15trn AUM are now signed up, with 60+ more in the onboarding stage, managing an additional $30trn AUM. John’s experience will be invaluable as we continue our global expansion.”

John Coules, Business Development, Appital, added: “I am very excited to join Appital. Having worked in sales trading for more than three decades I have seen first-hand how the industry has changed. Today, more than ever, access to hard-to-find liquidity in a market for size, without the risk of information leakage, is a significant challenge. Appital’s peer-to-peer price discovery and liquidity-sourcing technology is truly unique and redefines how buy-side firms engage to unlock latent liquidity. I look forward to working with the Appital team to support their international growth ambitions.”