BarCap Plans To Launch Pan-European Dark Pool Trading Platform-FT

14th Jun 2010 08:15

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Barclays Capital, the investment banking unit of U.K.-based Barclays PLC (BCS), plans to launch a pan-European "dark pool" trading platform as it completes an 18-month drive to build an equities trading business from scratch, the Financial Times reports on its website. The report cites Dixit Joshi, head of European equities, saying the dark pool would be launched in the third quarter. "In Europe, the equity market currently trades a fraction of the volume of the U.S. due in large part to the market structure. But with the landscape and structure in Europe now rapidly evolving we see great opportunities for growth," Joshi says. The move is designed to match the bank's presence in the U.S., where it bought the equities business of Lehman Brothers, and build a global presence in equities trading. It is also a sign of its ambition to rival large established equities players such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Credit Suisse Group (CS) and UBS AG (UBS), all of which also run dark pools, the FT says. Newspaper Web site: www.ft.com -By Paris Bureau, Dow Jones Newswires; +33 1 4017 1748 (END) Dow Jones Newswires June 14, 2010 03:15 ET (07:15 GMT)