24 October 2007

Turquoise announce technology and CEO

After the disappointing outcome over Plus Markets, various factions are coming out and poking fun at Turquoise. Unlike BOAT, Turquoise has little to show for its efforts so far, and were still looking for a Chief Executive.  What happened?

The big difference for me is that BOAT has strong partners led by the Markit team, who were selected way back in January.  As a result, they're ready for launch.

Meanwhile, Turquoise has been delayed and delayed, with launch pushed back to summer 2008 (about the same time as Project Smartpool announced today) because they haven't been able to select the core platform.  Actually, not quite true.  They did select the core technology platform, OMX, in June but couldn't get it delivered in time due to contractual negotiations.

To circumvent all of this, Turquoise then made the bid for Plus Markets earlier this month, which would gain them not only OMX but a Chief Executive, Simon Brickles.

According to the reports, the reverse takeover fell apart because of an argument over whether the choice should be OMX or Cinnober.  Alternatively, it's because Simon didn't want to have the title "CEO of the failed Turquoise Exchange" on his CV (and who does ... read on).  Alternatively, it's because one of the US banks in the syndicate didn't like the cut of his cloth and wanted their own man to lead the team.

Either way, it's about as interesting as whether England scored a try against South Africa in the Rugby World Cup or not (they did, but the video referee wasn't wearing his glasses fyi), as in the discussion is over and the decision was made whether it's the right or the wrong one.

The real winners are the survivors ready for next week's launch of MiFID.  And they are ... the London Stock Exchange, Euronext and the Deutsche Bourse ... oh yes, and Chi-x.

Well done folks, you're MiFID-ready.  That doesn't mean you're MiFID-compliant or MiFID-preferred by the way, but at least you're in production, available and I can trade with you.

Meanwhile, should Project Turquoise be renamed Project Red, as in Red with embarrassment?

Don't bet on it, as last week the consortia seemed to be saying that they would shortly announce both a technology provider and a Chief Executive.  I'll be watching that space with interest ...

... funnily enough, later the same day and in another part of the city ...

Turquoise announced later on today that Eli Lederman of Morgan Stanley will be CEO.  Checkout my future of trading transcript for more on Eli.  And, shock-horror, Cinnober will be the technology rather than OMX.  Funnily enough, Cinnober is the same technology platform that BOAT uses.  Small world isn't it?

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