The 2016 Trading Technology 40: Stu Taylor

< The 2016 Trading Technology 40

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Stu Taylor
Chief Executive Officer
Algomi
Last year: 33

Formed in 2012, Algomi was a novel fixed-income start-up. Rather than further crowd the field of e-trading platforms, CEO Stu Taylor and co-founders Robert Howes (the firm’s COO), Usman Khan (CTO) and Michael Schmidt (chairman) built a networking engine to support sales and trading with pertinent data and analytics. Young though it is, the London-based company has changed course technologically: The late-2014 release of Honeycomb transformed Algomi from a peddler of technology running on bank premises into a live-network operation. The reaction? As of February, 15 dealers and 160 buy-side firms, including 75 of the 100 biggest in fixed income, were on board. That was up from only two buy-side firms at the start of 2015. “Honeycomb gives investors eyes and ears into the world’s dealing floors,” says Taylor, 43, who in 2010, as UBS’s global head of matched principal trading in fixed income, launched the PIN-FI platform for bonds and credit default swaps. A buy-side firm can rely on Honeycomb to identify the best dealer for a given bond transaction, regardless of how frequently the issue trades, Taylor says, adding, “Users get a continual update of a bank’s ability to move a particular bond.” Currently reporting monthly volumes exceeding $50 billion, with average inquiry size above $8 million that is typically voice-executed, Algomi has also reorganized. Its head count is 140, compared with 90 in early 2015, but it’s down from a peak of 148 in November, when Algomi put an emphasis on client service and deployment. Signaling a commitment to U.S. growth, the firm signed a ten-year lease last fall for new office space in New York City, now with 20 people and the capacity to expand to accommodate 50.

2016 Trading Technology 40